MeulenBeckerathLettersContents1to6Web

Contents Section 1
Meulen - Beckerath correspondence, pages 1 - 208, 1935 (2x), 1. 12. 1946 - 5. 8. 1949.
With some comments by John Zube.

Contents of Volume I
Letters of U. v. Beckerath
to Henry Meulen

Motto:Without full monetary and financial freedom and panarchism or polyarchy - we can achieve neither enough jobs, freedom, security, peace, prosperity, enlightenment, personal happiness nor progress, and perhaps not even the survival of the human race. - J.Z., 5.6.03.

B. made summaries difficult - because he squeezed so much information onto a page. - If you can and want to, please do supply better and more accurate summaries. - J.Z., 5.6.03.

1 Introductory remarks by John Zube, Tucker connection, Hitler, Bruening & 4 Law Drafts against the Great
Depression, 20th of July 1944
2 Writings by Beckerath & Meulen, microfiche offers, related websites, PEACE PLANS
3 Meulen's "The Individualist". Beckerath had no journal at his disposal. Notes on B. and M.
4 Mobilization of all monetary freedom writings & publishing on CD-ROMs, panarchies also for central banking.
Conditions to make opinion exchanges more fruitful. Communism as original sin.
5 Tolerance and money reformers, the flawed English of B. Copyrights, Libertarian CD-ROM Publishing, hints to
LMP: Libertarian Microfiche Publishing and PEACE PLANS & Web offers of LMP
6 Libertarian CD-Publishing appeal
7 Further remarks on this edition of their letters. Why the separation of the letters? On my comments.
8 A kind of introduction to this correspondence by U. v. Beckerath himself, with his earliest preserved letter to
Henry Meulen, of 1. 8. 1935, dealing with their differences on aspects of monetary freedom. Tolerance,
PRA, Gandhi & machines
9 Tolerance, Option clauses, flawed & correct ones, redemptionism, silver & gold coin payments
10 W.B. Greene, Zander, redemptionism, debt relationships & right to demand gold coins or cash, exclusive
currency, redemption in gold or in goods? John DeWitt Warner, The Currency Famine of 1893
11 Immediate realization of monetary reforms, option clause system, "Free Banking", "readiness to accept"
12 Confidence, gold treasures, acceptance foundation, Scotland notes, obligations of debtors: accept like gold,
discounts as signals, publicity
13 Old Scottish banks, tax foundation & debtor foundation, their long-term loans, monetary independence,
insurrection against the Soviets, finance of it, right of creditors to demand exclusive currency, legal tender
14 Standing of issuers v. standing of acceptors.
14 12. 8. 35 B.'s summary of the differences in their monetary views, confidence vs. value preservation,
convertibility into metal or goods
15 Size of cover, redemption promised in future vs. immediate acceptance like gold, risks, interest
16 Runs as an advantage, constant purchasing power? price changes, legal tender, Assignats
17 Guardians fo the currency, legal tender, Prussian paper money without forced currency, central banks,
indepence of the quantity of gold available. Beginning of letters from 1946 -1959: 1.12.46.
18 Lost mail, "The Individualist", price control as disaster, gold currency, paper money, gold standard, gold basis,
"freedom of press" for people like B, Zander, Hitler, Jews, Koreans, collective responsibility
18 7.12.46: My economic programme for Germany, 14 points, most urgent measures
19 Dominion status for new German States, free gold market, currency reform
20 27.11. 48 Berling currency question and free banking, clear program, 3 points for monetary freedom, as rights
for workers rather than bankers. Banking today totters between inflation and deflation without knowing limits.
Personal and monetary freedom, legal tender or cours forcé & the free market
22 Free banking and workers, acceptance foundation, free exchange rare, inflation & dearness, right to refuse or
discount, right of free banking, free coinage
23 Free Trade and Free Banking, "experts", Roosevelt, New Deal, monetary despotism, Kant, ideas & legislation
4. XII. 1948: Free banking & freedom of contract, law of 1844, Bank of England monopoly, cour forcé
24 Aristotle, legislation, paper money as unit to measure values, cour forcé, Free Banking, gold as a measure of
value. Herbert Spencer & central planning, spirit of liberty, "The Individualist", gold standards, central banking
25 Bank of England, 1914-18, Keynes, redemption repeal, central banking, gold standard for Free Banking, Gold
Accounting Currency, independent of govt.
26 Soviet media, 5. XII. 1948 (II): Supply of exchange media and chance, forced currency, inflation & deflation,
Free Banking as an essential part of economic life, central banking vs. the people, price rises & govt., central
banking, railways, cars and trucks
27 Free Banking & economic enlightenment, war financing, Soviet armies, Moltke & war of 1870/71, "White"
armies, plunder, financing revolutions, Dr. Holzhauer's work, Japanese armies in China
9.12.1948: Mental powers, telekinesis, actions from a distance, Marco Polo, Kublai Khan magicians
28 Atomic bombs, exploded by pure will, gadolinium & nuclear reactors
11. XII. 1948: Trade to support warfare States, Arthur Kitson, conspiracy theorist, personal vs. causal thinking
Devil theory & witches, satanists, India Siva sects
29 Konfutse & words, Kitson, opposition to gold standard rather than to right to demand gold, Jevons, gold
standard without a law, tolerance for opponents to gold standard, corn notes etc., free gold market
30 Gold market & freedom vs. redemptionism, Kitson, monetary slavery, reformers, Goethe, masses, freedom
31 Kitson errors, Nero & denar depreciation, railway money, silver depreciation, small mark notes prohibited after
1871, inflation, gold discoveries & prices
32 Prof. Bradford & gold standard, readiness-to accept paper money, railway money
17. 12. 1948: Communism, russia, Leninism, Stalinism, unemployment, state-capitalism, socialism
33 18.12.1948 (I): Free Banking, private bankers, supervision by public. Potential issuers, Krupp store vouchers,
Payment in French mines, B. in WW I, Kant: About Eternal Peace, socialist parties behind monetary despotism.
34 Cooperative stores lending their money to employers in Belgium, workers & their wives, mentality. W. B.
Greene & "exclusive currency", modern laws, legal currency, unions vs. private money, Marxism, workers,
revolts not revolutions, monetary revoluton of 1922/2, Reichsbank notes refused. Free Banking vs. crisis of
1930/32 & Hitlerism & war, B.'s lost library, M. seems to have lost his, too. Free Banking as a human right.
35 18.12.1948 (II): Causal vs. personal thinking, Marx, capitalism, accidents, Kremlin, blaming persons, plans and
"sabotage", endurance of despotism, China, French Revolution, Robespierre, Roman policy, secessionism
36 Helping secessionist by good social program, foreign policy, long-term credit by Free Banking, Knapp's
"payment community", taxpayment in alternative currencies in Prussia, job of bankers to help customers use
their goods, labour and claims as ready money, acceptance by debtors
37 Daily needed consumer goods or services as cover, length of loans, time factor
38 29.12.1948: Regular repayments in the banker's notes, with other notes only upon a small charge. Prussian
practice of "Strafgroschen" to assure reflux: a continuous demand for paper money. Four Bills, Zander
39 Trust & distrust, under shop foundation vs. Meulen banks. Bank vault gold useless. Essential is tha gold is not
forbidden in the community. Security for long-term loans, Building Society example. Adam Smith on "raising
money by circulation". Sound alternative.
40 Sound long-term loans, notes covered by due debts or at least readiness to accept foundaiton. B.'s essays in the
Annals of Collective Economy, ed. by Prof. Milhaud. Selling bonds vs. issuing notes instead of bonds. Scottish
Banks & silver standard, parallel value standard, option clause
41 Scottish banking, power of bankers, redemptionism, Prussian central note issuing banks, position of note
holders who insisted upon redemption. Timing of loans and repayments
42 31.12.1948: Stirner, Statism, replacing the State by voluntary organisations, Engels, Socialism, Stalin
43 Centre of State's power: the money monopoly or monopoly of means of payment. 1934 "forgery" trials in
Russia, against self-help for wage payments. Free Banking an explosive against the exploitative State, Free
Banking as a weapon, monetary statism, Rochdale pioneers, "The Individualist". Nor laws against goods
warrants in England?
44 Central banking still after the fall of the Soviet Regime, public finance in Australia, taxes, public fund holding
and deflation. (Comments by J.Z.) 2. I. 49: M. knew Kitson. Free Banking & British Commonwealth,
nationalism. Benjamin R. Tucker's : Instead of a Book", Berlin individualist anarchists, Spencer, Kant,
Manchester School, Stirner, B.s library, air raids against civilians but not against furnaces
45 "Sound Currency" Warner's article, clearing-house certificates. 2. I. 1949: Monopoly of means of payment,
next to atomic boms the most serious menace, monetary history vs. Marx's view of history as class wars,
Gibbon, monks, paper rather than silk from China. Free Banking of Four Bills type vs. "raising money by
circulation"
46 Above contrasts continued, acceptance for goods vs. trust, short term vs. long circulation, role of gold
47 Free Banking & external trade. 2. I. 1949: Schopenhauer, ghosts, apparitions, seances, spiritualists, Slade,
Prof. Zoellner, Wilhelm Weber, etc. perhaps useful against atomic "weapons"
48 4. 1. 19149: Investments an trustworthy debtors, Building societies, interest rate, intermediation rather than
creation of capital or credit, it also requires note issues. Limits for issues, cours forcé, long-term credits.
14. I. 1949: Bank history, trust and gold. Kant, principles and practice. Trust cannot be replace by gold.
49 Banking requires much more than trust and gold, old Scottish banks, silver, gold, redemptionism or freedom for
other banks, too? Monetary tolerance, pricing in gold, readiness to accept foundation, definition of paper money
50 inflation, price rises, profits, workers, experts, journalists etc., prices on a gold basis, comparisons.
51 Industrial credit, Scratchley, Building Societies and "local enterprise associations" issuing bonds, Trustee Acts
& credit insurance, Rittershausen's German books on Trustee Acts and Industrial Credits, 17. I. 1949: Gibbon,
standing armies & militia
52 Adam Smith and militia, if not State controlled, collective responsibility, Bible, God, Jews, Germans, Dupiat,
Berlin, new frontiers leading to new nationalism, UN, Spender on right to ignore the State, Fichte on individual
secessionism
53 Plebiscite in Germany to join the British Commonwealth, missing papers of B., my ranking of B. 18. I. 1949,
non-intervention, Fichte's view, early intervention with Nazi regime, Roman policy, Montesquieu,
governments-in -exile, liberty, in kingdoms and republics
54 "National liberty" or "independence", India and Ireland, 23. I. 1949, duty to restore the peace, China civil war,
Pax Britannica, South Africa, Portugese and French colonies, intermarriages, education via Free Banking, role
of Normans among Anglo-Saxons
55 25.I. 1949: Amok runners, cooperatives in India, Free Banking, Negroes, South Africa, tax payment in tax
foundation money only or also in private notes? B.'s book on Public Insurance & Compensation Money
56 26. I. 1949: Free Banking without bullion or gold coin stock, no prohibitions, convertibility into goods and
services in daily demand, in short-term business loans only, then panics will raise trust in such bankers. Runs
that please sellers. If gold certificates are issued & not 100 % covered then full publicity and honest are needed.
Freedom to experiment.
57 Tucker's "Instead of a Book", nuclear war threat, jury selection, ancient Athens, selection by lot, hazard of the
ballot, Tucker's appreciation of Spencer, Social Statics, chapter XIX, renunciation of citizenship as a right,
Werner Ackermann's Cosmopolitan Union, Protectorates for such Unions, Tucker on State Socialism &
Anarchism,
58 Liberal socialism vs. governmental socialism etc. Hertzka's "Freeland", Free Banking in Tucker's time a kind of
individualistic socialism, B. an adherent of Tucker since he was 18, phrenology, Gall, redemptionism, Amok,
collective responsibility, antisemitism. Hitler held Jews, Freemasons, Jesuits, etc. collectively responsible
59 Collective responsibility, groups cannot be responsible, only individuals can be responsible, Kant, Hume, Adam
Smith, Spencer, Tucker. Trade unionists murder an "undercutting" barber in China, biting him to death and
getting away with it. Collective responsibility for Labour Party actions, Kant, B. almost executed Hitler, his
guilt feeling for not having done it. Arrested and watched by Gestapo for publishing, his friend Unger murdered
60 More on the chance to execute Hitler. Did "the" Germans choose Hitler? Collective responsibility & French
Revolution, elections under Nazi control, clubbing rather than arguing, lack of freedom in Weimar Republic,
real culprits for Hitler's rise, people a body without a will, militia, Adam Smith, collective guilt of subjects of
democracies?
61 Guild of democratic governments: they did not mobilize against Hitler early enough. B's role in getting seven
men together to frame the Four Bills, Dr. Ramin, Dr. Walter Zaner, Dr. H. Rittershausen, Unger, Meis, Dr.
Munzer. (Details in previously microfiched Beckerath Papers. - J.Z.) Personal Finance Cos. in US, honesty
among businessmen, security of loans without the usual securities, student loans, educated Indians, Free
Banking in India
62 Politicians and their promises, universities and free banking, school for monetary freedom, no missionaries &
correspondence courses for it, no series of lectures etc. CD-ROMs & microfiche, floppy disks not used
sufficiently for it, either. Does home rule mean liberty? Capitani regenti in little republics of Italy of the Middle
Ages. They had to be foreigners! Experience with territorial politics not sufficienty educational. Panarchism.
63 Inflation, definition and indicators, contracts in terms of paper money, refuse paper money, demand honest
money. 9. II. 1949: Duties, Kant, god, a very powerful demon, churches, revelations, hearing voices,
Schopenhauer, divine prescriptions vs. duties derived from man's nature, Kant's and Spinoza's "God" was
nature, Frederick II., Christ, Jahweh, blood sacrifices
64 Kant was convinced that Jesus had prepared a religious general strike, beginning with a refusal to pay the
temple tax. 9. II. 1949: Lond term loans through note issues? Rather mortgages, shares, bonds etc. Interest-
bearing notes, During US Civil War, interest rate: offer and demand for capital goods decides. 14. II. 49: against
land nationalisation, rather private land capitalism than State capitalism in land
65 Damaschke"s "Die Bodenreform", 1921, proposed confiscation of land-value "increases" in the middle of the
Great Inflation! Major Douglas. Private Bankers and Free Banking for people not "creditworthy" in the
opionion of average bankers. 15. II. 49: Repeal the law of 1848 & restore the right to issue tradesmen's
tokens. Replace term "banker" by something like: "manager of private clearing house". Petition for such bill.
66 Another short description on the introduction of monetary freedom, 4 points, cantine money, fichas, truck shops
redeeming truck notes, money monopoly, unemployment
67 9.II.1949: Nuclear bombs introduced in suitcasses, somnambulists, esp & psychic research to discover them?
Tyrannicide, exterritorial autonomy for all dissenters, atomic "weapons" not better than "extermination camps",
Robert Oppenheimer & nuclear disarmament - with a big screwdriver - in everybody's hands.
68 20. II. 1949: Bell's "Photophon" and Mercadier's "Radiophonie": sound & ultrasound transmitted through light,
suitable to destroy nuclear rockets? (I prefer their disassembly by those ordered to guard and finally use them.-
J.Z.)
69 24. II. 1949: Hitler's secret war preparations. B.'s vain attempt to make them known. collective responsibility,
free competition between various free banking systems, governments: ignorance in action
70 25. II. 1949: Kant & duties towards oneself, his metaphysics of morals and panarchism, self-legislation
71 Absolute duties, categorical imperative, 3 Kantian duties, Schopenhauer & Kant, altruism & man's nature
72 Price control, repentance vs. regret, 27. II. 49: typified tickets, not convertible into money but merely into goods
or services legal in England? George W. Hilton, The Truck System…
73 Ticket money and its convertibility into goods and services rather than into gold, option clauses, gold
prohibitions, Free Banking to start without gold, Cooperative Brotherhood Bank, social progress - a natural
process. 28. II. 1949: Securities fit for banks, securities offering immediate backing through readiness-to accept,
short-term loans & trust
74 Debt foundation for notes, short term loans and reflux, rather than trust in banker and long-term loans granted in
notes. 3. III. 1949: Otto Huebner, Die Banken, 1854, law of 1844, little profit from note issues - under then
existing conditions - for banks of issue, deposit banking. Prussian public fire societies & their sound practice
75 Deposit banking. 4. III. 1949: Illegal coining of gold coins, private coinage, bullion market, Free Banking
76 5. III. 1949: Redemptionist practices by Prussian State Bank & Reichsbank to suppress competitors. The all too
limited "free" banking was not very attractive. Tax on uncovered notes, Michaelis. Cover by notes of well
established banks? Reject the conventional redemption idea & practice. Gold bugs, fractional reserves, clearing
without gold coins
77 Gold as value standard rather than as means of exchange. 6. III. 1949: Soviets permitted shops unrationed and
not price controlled, prohibition of more than 600 East-Marks in cash, forfeiture laws, anti-capitalist mentality,
workers and proletarians, Marx and Engels promised wealth not freedom - and delivered neither. Bastia, Tucker
& Meulen, the most important liberty, to provide their own means of payment through Free Banking
78 Independence from the managers of central banks, working class, Marx, Engels, Communist Manifesto on
central banking & legal tender, supply of means of payment, money issue monopoly, exclusive currency, W.B.
Greene, lack of cash the greatest evil, hoarding and the Socialist State, monetary despotism
79 Monetary freedom is the preliminary condition of all other liberties. 12. III. 1949: Duty to discuss details of
Free Banking, compliments, politeness, market price of gold metal, bullion market, gold and trust, statism,
Rittershausen on savers as "bee-folk"
80 Currency "reform", usual governmental, Rittershausen & his second wife, redemption in notes of other banks,
independence from rich bankers, note issue without possessing riches but rather by helping others mobilise their
illiquid but ready for sale and wanted consumer goods and articles into optional and supplementary "money".
Free Banking in poor countries by poor people. Neither gold nor notes by well-established banks will be
available there. Competition by free banks. People supporting free banks in US protected themselves against
redemptionist controllers. (Not only by beating up the controllers but also by sending gold stocks ahead of the
inspectors to provide "cover" for the banks whose gold stock was still to be inspected. Their monetary
knowledge was greater than that of the inspectors. - J.Z., 5.6.03.)
81 General shop foundation. Establishing free banks, John DeWitt Warner's study, Clearing-House certificates. 15.
III. 1949: Fractional redemption, distrust, discounting, refusals to accept, clearing houses.
82 Clearing houses as check on unsound note issues, long-term loans directly in fresh banknotes, notes from the
point of view of workers, stupidity of authorities, Nazi mentality against gold and Jews. Why are the crazy in
power and why to the reasonable have to obey them? Hayek: Why the worst get to the top, panarchism,
insufficient enlightenment, Ideas Archive & Market
83 Libertarian think tanks & Ideas Archive. 17. III. 1949: Absolute duty. Tiberius, ghosts, Schopenhauer, king
Theodoric, Gibbon, Genghis Khan's dream, Dostoievsky, Pirogow, Russian vivisector, Attila - some extreme
cases indicating human nature even in the worst men. Darwin, survival of the fittest and duty
84 Rousseau, decentralisation into small countries. 18. III. 1949: 3 kinds of exchange, role of note-issuing banks
vs. role of mortgage banks or other capital banks. Clearing does not need capital. Nazis against clearing.
Clearing certificates require not metallic redemption but only redemption into each other.
85 Currency famines under monetary despotism, Warner's article on self-help in "Sound Currency". 19. III. 1949:
Interest, Tucker, statistics, reference to B. in Prof. Spitzer-Foerster tables, edition of 1934, Proudhon, mutual
credit, clearing believed to be unsound by wholesale merchants of Birmingham, still in 1870
86 Note issue as clearing activity. Four Bills. Role of interest in achieving this clearing. Reflux of notes. Notes as
cheques to be made good by clearing, clearing-cheques, credit & adequat legal forms, Zander. Mutual banks and
their return of interest earnings. Rapid repayers could get a "borrower's dividend". 19. III. 1949: health
insurance
87 21. III. 1949: Duty, Kant, motives. 22. III. 1949: Bitterness against Germans because of concentration camps,
collective responsibility? Haiti rebellion against "whites". More knowledge of wrongs does not provide the
power and opportunity to resist them.
88 Extermination camps, cruelty, refugees. Early resistance group of B., count Ballestrem, Nazis as Huns, could an
Austrian regiment have liberated Nazi Germany at an early stage? Plans for contacts with Paris and London,
concessions to communist resistance members followed by the Hitler-Stalin pact. "Internal affairs", Zander,
governments-in-exile, prisoners of war treatment, treatment of deserters
89 Desertion plan, Follin and French & English nationalism, Free Banking, Four Bills, King Wen of China,
Resistance of 20th July, 1944, Rittershausen won over Yorck von Wartenberg & others. Why B. & Rittershausen
survived, resistance attempts, revolutions & military insurrections insufficiently studied towards a libertarian
program. However, see www.exterritorial.info/ for some of my contributions towards such attempts. 23. III. 49:
Deposit business, Huebner, which bank is easiest to establish? Wage bill in Germany
90 Metallic redemptionism & free banking without it. Prof. Hirsch, estimate of readiness-to-accept in stores, after
1928 in Germany. Free banking start up in crisis. Shopkeepers and their coop bank of issue, trust and justice
administration, foreign trade and free banking, profit through rapid rapid rather than slow return of notes
91 Free Banking for all countries with monetary calamities. 23. III. 49: Credit coops in Germany, mutual credit,
private bankers & their replacement, India
92 25. III. 1949: Tucker, hoarding, issue monopoly, sales struggles, sales costs, arms industry in Germany 1938,
Free Banking as a mediator between capital and last consumer, but not simply by note-issuing, like Assignats
93 Selling costs continued. 25. III. 1949: Independence from employers, authorities, labour offices, housing
officies, parties, church etc. Ability to pay should be guaranteed no less than life itself. Monopoly of the means
of payment is tyranny. Gettign means of payment by the own actions. Necessity of creating new means of
payment from one day to the other. DeWitt Warner dissertation in "Sound Currency" on precedent. Emergency
money issues
94 Potter, a boy of 15 invented the valve gear of steam engines, unknow worker wrote to Robert Owen on order
system for personal requirements in advance, to avoid sales crises. 26. III. 1949: Tucker & Anarchists vs.
Henry George, George's statism, all politics. George for Free Banking & for government money!
95 George meant merely deposit banking. Tucker. Deliving money production to individuals, means never
inflation and produces superior money. W.B. Greene. In defence of H. George. 30. III. 1949: Many kinds of
interest, interest & exclusive curency, Justinian & his Corpus Juris on interest rate control, payment in goods vs.
payment in money. Help of Free Banking for debtors, enabling them to pay, indirectly, with their own products
instead of with cash (of an exclusive currency). Benefit from high interest rates e.g. for old age pensions
96 Riches in old age pension through contributions invested safely in productive enterprises at very high interest
1. IV., 1949: Tucker, Warren and the cost principle. Jevons on values determined by future costs of production.
Synthesis, order system. Options, dealings in futures. Selling without orders. Workers should use economic
methods now restricted to the class of the rich people.
97 4.4.1949: Greene's "Mutual Banking" & its abridgment, Indians. (But did non-Indians publish the complete
edition sufficiently? - J.Z., 5.6.03.) Society for the reprint of scarce old tracts. (Just use CD-ROMs, now, for all
of them! - J.Z., 5.6.03.) 6. 4. 1949: Rittershausen lecture on mortgage banking & private note issues ca. 1929.
Reaction of "experts". Statism and Central Banking. Free banking against the opposition by bankers etc.
Economic rulers have lost all sense for what must be done.
98 Nazis & Bolshevists. 7. 4. 1949: Mutual Savings Banks, interest and Tucker, Long-term mutual banking,
Building & Loan Associations, Mutual Credit, Credit Cooperatives, interest as a compensation for waiting,
commissions to agents, Short-term mutual banking
99 Here note-issuing is essential, inducing debtors to repay fast, usage fee for notes instead of "interest". Greene &
Tucker. 8. 4. 1949: Wakinshaw: "Prosperity for all!", index currency party, Gsell (Gesell), antisemitism of
Nazis and Jews, Irving Fisher, Robespierre, Mirabeau, muzzles (chains) for the economy
100 Free Banking against index-money idea and forced currency & exclusive currency. However, permission for
private index clauses. Monetary despotism like Stalinism. Gesell close to anarchism, index standard for
optional currencies, stabilising the price level attempts by inflationary and deflationary measures denying that
one engages in either, dishonest CPI, inaccuracy of price statistics sources, Rittershausens research on this. 14.
4. 1949: Long-term loans from short-term deposits
101 Fraudulent debt contracts of banks with debtors, unsound deposit banking practice, with Reichsband (central bank) backing, Crisis of 1932. The "experts" remained unaware of historical precedents for their mistakes. Commitments to pay in dollars without possessing them, right of creditors to demand cash
102 Bruening - abilities great but knowledge of banking: zero. Thus, he, too, blamed speculators - and granted a moratorium, increasing the crisis and preparing the road for Hitler. By putting his signature to the Four Law drafts, submitted by his right hand man, he could still have stopped the crisis and prevented Hitler and WW II. But just before that a polical crisis unseated him. (Not a summary but a supplement!) Distrust under the M. and under the B. system has very different results. 15.4.1949: Duty, Kant, Thomas Moore, Babcock's pamphlet
103 Postage, Post Office, Blockade practice. Tacit cooperation with Soviet censors. 16.4.1949: Banking not tied to the amount of gold at any place, value standard: value of gold on the bullion market and via gold coin pricing in shops, accepting notes denominated in gold weight units instead. W. B. Green on gold merely as value standard. Immortality of the churches via the immortality of great pioneers. Buddha, Schopenhauer. Lack of exchange media restricts our productive abilities - through restricting exchange options. Money lender interest rates, BLA rates

104 Money reform in Berlin, Jacob, Staatsfinanzwissenschaft, Halle, 1832 best classical money reform proposal, here summed up in 6 points. Chinese merchants bribing mandarins not to govern, Prussia taxed foreign coins at tax offices. Admit all paper money for this purpose at their free market rating. Curb Exchanges
105 Gram gold weight as value standard, proposed already 1871, later by H.L. Follin, used during Great Inflation, as accounting standard, like Hamburg's Mark Banko or the Makuta of some Negroe tribes - Montesquieu. Private coinage, common sense conditions. Inflation impossible when gold coins circulate freely, paper money has no cours forcé & Free Banking is permitted and its technique is known. Railway money
106 Railway money, acceptance foundation, the freedom barrier against inflation, dearness & inflation, "experts" on inflation. 18. 4. 1949: Moratorium
107 Moratorium worsened the crisis, honest bankruptcies preferable, promises to pay in foreign exchange could not be fulfilled in foreign exchange - but otherwise, foreign exchange control as cause of war, speculation not to blame except that consisting in promises to pay rare cash and that consisting in the right of creditors to demand it.
Free banking not merely to meet a crisis but to make banking immune to crisis influences. Moratorium may have relieved some banks but was bad for workers and shopkeepers, then unable to sell what they had to sell.Where to establish the first Free Bank?
108 Free Banking in England, once started a chain reaction could result, courses on free banking, ticket money of Namur, Belgium in 19th century, coop stores operating as note-issuing banks for employers, alcoholism in Belgium. Emergency money in Prussia of 1848 & later, Darlehenskassenscheine with tax foundation. Metallic redemptionism prevented sound development
109 Warner on currency famine, even small free issues can often help greatly. Emergency money, money and blood circulation. 19.4.1949: Sanyal & Rittershausen. 19.IV.1949:
110: 4 advances by W. B. Greene, 6 advances beyond Greene's Mutual Banking scheme. 20.4.1949: On M's "Free Banking" book and J. St. Mill, David Human, Adam Smith, liquidity
111: Ability to pay more important than prices or interest rates, inflation welcomed because, initially, it improves liquidity. No strict border between deflation and inflation. Deflation within inflations, inflations while in some aprts while parts of the economy are deflated. Prices and quantity of gold coins, Diocletian's price controls, Profl Lexis on ancient prices in gold, J.S. Mill. False issue and reflux technique rather than guilty persons to blame. Monetary freedom lacking, it is most revolutionary. Wakinshaw, Personal Rights re money and banking. The moral element in the monetary standard, unnoticed by Steuart, Hume, Adam Smith, Mill, Senior, Marx & his disciples.
112: Childe: "Changing Capital Market", Liberals & Free Banking, Brooks Adams, illiquidity & govt. power
13.4.1949: Babcock's pamphlet, and Hamlet on honesty.
113 25.4.1949: Bishop Berkeley & John Gray, making the demand for labour greater than the supply, Nazis & English point of view, interest in economic principles, Hitler, State education in Germany. Greene trusted the free market. Restocking shops, Greene's shops, successful during crisis, diminished lending? What kind of lending? Lending of Greene's notes will not be diminished. Warner offers details in his "Sound Currency" article of 1895/96.
Monetary distrust may serve as a monetary basis as well as trust. Experience with Clearing House Certificates.
24.4.49 (II): Option and orders by workers with little cash, negotiated with shops
114 Contractual buying by workers. If it were generalised the usual crises would hardly be possible. Lending on a gold basis, Joint Import Export Agency. Gold basis different from Kitson's gold standard. Shortage of wealth, but why? Gold basis is prohibited. Confounding gold basis with "the" gold standard. Duty, Kant, altruism, Darwin, Babcock
115 Distrust vs. trust for note issues, ticket money of North Adams, Mass. printer, depreciating money of Gsell, Wakenshaw etc. Role of trust and distrust. Unemployment - none when bankers understand their business and are free from legal shackles. 26.4.1949: John Badcock, Slaves of Duty, Tucker, obedience, egoism, Atmanism, Kant
116 Heroes of duty resist. Badcock, Aristotle, Byron, Shakespeare, imposed duties vs. self-chosen ones, Tucker on duty to respect other's rights, Schopenhauer
117 Pride and duty, Shakespeare's Cordelia in King Lear, Kant on self-satisfaction accompanying duty done. Babcock. Stirner, Arnold von Winkelried, egotism, egocentralism, nature, time and space, language, egoism
118 Babcock's "Slaves of Duty" & Shakespeare's King Lear & Timon of Athens. Darwin's "Descent of Man", weird book finding experience of B. Even more extraordinary one by myself, or, rather, a London bookdealer.
119 Darwin & Kant, duty, dignity, the true moral legislators of mankind, Voltaire, Swift & Shakespeare, Epicurus and Moses, Babcock & pleasure
120 Duty to self, obligation, Badcock, Goethe in his "Faust", Byron in his "Manfred", Kant's view: He calls obligations imposed by others Heteronomy and admits only Autonomy as foundation of duty, Kant on knowledge without experience, mathematic certainties. Social reforms including monetary freedom may require a new religion
121 Egoism as a basis of religion has failed, Kant's philosophy as B.'s religion but his philosophy needs translation into the language of the people. 1. V. 1949: Christian god, Schopenhauer, Inquisition, fanatcis, old Jewis race laws and Nazi legislation, Hitler's "Neo-Judaism". 2. V. 1949
122 I am a strong adversary to Malthusianism, some reasons. Selling food has been the problem, not producing it. The world needs eaters, not the things to be eaten. Let us first meet under-population. Confounding job opportunities with shortage of victuals, Godwin. 3. 5. 1949: Municipal credit offer to tradesmen, not in cash but by paying their bills, like the Public Insurance Cos. of Prussia did and US Building & Loan Associations.
123 6. 5. 1949: Index money people and their despotism, public utilities, wars for oil? Mutual banks, minimum size. Readiness to accept mutual money in wages etc. W. B. Green. Starting Mutual Bank in a small town. Foreign exchange offices, Woolworth and Coles note issue potential
124 Greene on spread of Mutual Banking from one small place in the world. Legal form for Free Banking, acceptance obligation for bank's debtors is (corresponding to due or soon due debts), coop store as note issuing banker, payment of wages by certificates valid at the employers own shops, Krupp's example in Essen. Not a single employer protested against laws outlawing private currencies, nor did any workers. Zander on railway money.
125 Dr. Unger, trust and judical avenues, on debtor's obligation to accept his banker's notes. Committees & trust. Savings Banks in Germany and People's Banks. Moratorium. Length of wage period will determine quantity of currency required, stocks for sale likely to be much larger than possible issues of optional currencies.
126 Under Free Banking the circulation of outstanding notes will be reduced because they will return faster. Moratorium. Jacob's type of currency reform after an inflation, tax foundation and new issues.
127 Financing house repairs risking the charge: You do unauthorised banking business. 7. 5. 1949: B. still unemployed and not on old age penson. 15. 5. 49: Greene asserts crises must occur where Free Banking is not in use. Role of e.g. speculation. Causa proxima vs. real cause, mass unemployment in majo crises. 1929 US crisis: IF 128 Speculation was merely the causa proxima. Retailers selling all their stocks will have no difficulties getting restocked. Green: Muutal banking can spread from a single village. Duty, Montaigne and the burning of B.'s library by people convinced to contribute to England's glory and welfare. Shakespeare on duty.
129 "Woman and children first!" & "The captain leaves the lost ship as the last." Darwin & Kant. Louise Saxe Eby: "The Quest for Moral Law", 1944. Drinkers. Arithmetic & teaching children
130 Certainties vs. faith, duties and pleasure seeking, time, space & metaphysics, Berlin Blockade, commando strikes rather than wars, Konjunktur, Germany of 1928
131 Inflation and deflation crises, UK war debts to US unjust. Hitler's crazy enough to invade Russia. Gold clauses and free gold market. Chinese Tael-Currency - a private silver standard.
132 Division of labour, requires certainty of sales and that requires degrees of an ordering system for produced goods or goods to be produced. Marx's vague idea that consuming is part of production. Both are merely the two sides of the economy. Both need some organization, not only displays on the markets. Originators of ordering system: An English worker writing to Robert Owen - & published in his "Crisis" and Adolf von Elm, who died in 1917, who envisioned an all-embracing coop. - How different would that have been from Soviet central planning?
133 Malthusianism, optimum population, possible population size for England. Free Trade neglected by Malthusians. It was never a problem to get victuals but a problem to get them sold, wars, natural catastrophes, civil wars & revolutions excepted. Abundance of food produced.
134 Free Trade and Free Banking could help to nourish a vast population. Malthus as the Soviet's best ally. 19. V. 1949: Darwin a Malthusian. Survival of the species uisually unrelated to hunger.
135 Gladiators, too, struggled for life but weren't starving. Hunters & fishermen diminish the stock of food, peasants augment it. The great migrations caused by epidemics among cattle. 19. V. 1949: Multiply the population until while people do not stand in queues before bakers and whil foreign countries compete to supply England with food, provided … 21. V. 49: Berlin Blockade
136 Strikes for payment in West-mark rather than East-mark. Strikes a barbarous expedient. Prices in East & West
28. 5. 1949: Blockade almost renewed. Mail still refused in Air Lift. Railways constituted as a coop. 31. V. 1949: Soviets still holding back railway cars.
137 Soviet-system, atomic bombs, Nietzsche, Man, nuclear threat, territorialism, 1. 6. 49: Alcohol, light & health, Benjamin Franklin, ulcers, blockade for letters
138 Tucker, Bilgram, Greene et al overestimated the role of interest, role in long-term-loans vs. role in short term loans, Follin & Buddha on general terms, Buddhism atheistic, gods, Kislat on life, pigs. Problem is not the distribution of wealth & social product but to create the possibility to distribute or to create liquidity, State issue monopoly. Prize for the conduct of the first free ank, bankers. Who understands free banking? Middle class
139 Thinking in terms of classes. Being a proletarian usually dumbs down rather than enlightens. Kislat, refugees.
B. almost got a job in Persia in 1934, Vram Pilossian, overproduction, difficulty consists in selling products, communicating ideas
140 The situation of the few enlightened people, significance of the Ideas Archive, Vram Pilossian, price changes and Free Banking, crises will change the owners of properties but need not hinder the exchange of existing labour force, goods and services - under monetary freedom. Bad debtors should not be propped up.Taxes & gambling, monetary despotism & false price signals, mutual banking not speculation but merely exchanging present goods, labour and services, exchanging the wealth consisting in labour power, raw material, example of international trade with goods warrants, Prof. Edgard Milhau & international clearing certificates
141 Foreign exchange controls, limited circulation period for international clearing cheques, Karl Pearson, Karneades, Kislat, harm done by the good or well-meaning or ill-informed, Emerson, Nietzsche, cruely, Nazis, rape, soldiers
142, Christ & exclusive currency. 2. 6. 49: intellects, flaws in thinking, god, Aristotle, scholastics, Cartesius, Kant, judgements, De Morgan, mathematics, logic, certainty, suicide of Japanese students when they lost the belief in certainties, Paul Morand's report
143 6. 6. 1949: "The Individualist", some goods sell better at high prices. (Alas, not quality libertarian information!) Very conservative Conservatives, Kennelth de Courcy, "Intelligence Digest, law of 1844, overtime & accident rate, Tucker & strike of taxpayers, Soviets finance themselves largely otherwise. Education costs, education proposal by Rabelais, poverty of intellectuals turns them towards communism, Kitson
144 Even a tradesman needs a lawyer by now, artificial insemination & discrimination, pop stars etc. as propagators of the human race through artificial insemination? Or beasts like Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Stalin?
Income tax, dollar shortage, spelling reform, Chinese children, torture, colour bar, Russia, atomic weapons
145 Racism although pure races haved disappeared, Jews, antisemitism in Germany, scapegoating, compulsory sterilizations, Negroes, Turks in Berlin, monetary freedom effect upon racism. Bastiat, Proudhon, both did not distinguish between long-term-loans and short-term-loans in their discussion, CD-ROM publishing, alternative media. Montgomery, United Nations: Union of Governments
146 Agricultural coops of Italy, birth control, overpopulation? No queues before the bakeries! Malthus. Full employment through Free Banking, not birth control. 11. VI. 1949: Schopenhauer & effect of good wishes, occurrence of duodenal ulcers more common among men, coops issuing their own notes & federating to establish issuing centres, Great Inflation's gold certificate issues, Farbwerke Hoechst, Austrian mentality re money
147 Northern Germans, Prussian State Library, Manchester notes at Bali, over-emission effect, speculation in goods warrants,
148 Note discount effects when shops are still ready to accept them at par, unjustified distrust under Free Banking: It rapidly draws the distrusted notes out of circulation. Solingen trade with Freiburg using shop foundation currencies.
149 Discounted goods warrants, bills of exchange business, Fullarton on bills in England with more than 100 signatures, redemptionism in goods and services or via clearing settlement vs. redemption in rare metals, stamps as currency, Post Office prohibitions, statism, lack of gold coins, Nazi view on them. Precondition for gold value accounting: prices in shops are expressed in gold weight values. Central banking leaves many smaller communities, especially villages, short of cash. Factor in growth of cities?
150 Forgery risk under central banking vs. Free Banking. Free Banking utilizes not only trust but also distrust. Milhaud's time limit for the validity of notes, philosophy & economy, Proudhon, cause and effect, Laplace, certainties and propabilities, experience, Joshua & Hitler, sun standing still? a priori knowledge, Karl Pearson
151 Levitation experiments by Zoellner, psychic research, gravitation, Fallmerayer description of Anthos monks levitating, Bertrand Russell, metaphysical theories catalogued, Buddhism, Brahmans, Withdrawing religiously developed to withdrawing from the State - Spencer - to doing it econmically, via Free Banking. 12. VI. 1949: Malthusianism, Colin Clark, real income
152 Most taxes spend for purposes against the interests of the working class. Nazi Germany, real income, net output, average incomes, Colin Clark, populations and real incomes per head
153 Colin Clark on incomes and population, social conditions factor, exploitation of agricultural workers in China and India, beggars, usurers, rent & taxes payable incash by people who rarely see it, share of peasant in his product in France before 1789, Hyppolyte Taine on revolution. Extreme land monopoly thought example
154 Japan & Tibet, religious factor, Colin Clark, optimal population, Free Trade, Free Banking, China mostly not under the plough. 25. 6. 1949: Montaigne, Bilgram, interest rate
155 Interest rate at building societies, Scratchley on Building Societies, Tucker, Greene, discussing all possibilities, central banking in post-war Germany, inflation by the Allies continued that by Nazis, central bank notes penetrate the economy insufficiently, need for tradesmen's tokens remained, Free Banking could rapidly supply exchange media that the central bank could not in months. DeWitt Warner report in "Sound Currency"
156 Bilgram still favours centralised issue. His letter to Tucker of 18. I. 1890, Roscher on interest, administration expenses, bureaucratic credit delays, Rabelais on bureaucratic justice administration, Rittershausen on merchants renouncing cheap government loans because of bureaucratic requirements for them. Murder of Frick by workers, Montaigne on Skanderberch (Skanderbegh?), brutal force, cooperative enterprises through purchase by employees
157 Some early thinking of B. still preserved into his old age? Revolt mentality, John Babcockm Nihilists, propaganda by deed, desertion plan, vs. prisoner of war treatment, rightful war aims, Swiss constitution, Bismarck on spread of socialist ideas in armed forces. Winning wars merely by propaganda, case of Seleukos in Plutarch, overpopulation in Egypt? Compared with population density in US towns
158 Not quantity of food but employment rate, banking facilities & legislation set limits to population. 27…6.1949:
159 Malthus. Supply of population a question not of quantity of food but of note-issuing. Cassell: "On Quantitative Thinking in Political Economy", method of evaluating all possible factors and views, multy-hypothesis approach vs. single hypothesis approach, Robert Sagehorn. Increasing income free migration and Free Banking, Indians in South Africa, Mrs. Mercy Otis Warren on American Revolution, English abuses in India, Churchill, immigration, population & money question: same problem, Benjamin Franklin, Rittershausen
160 28. 6. 1949: Meulen manuscript on note monopoly. Does it still exist? Malthusianism, China, 1931, Dr. Unger, Chinese peasant mentality
161 English population density, arable land percentage, increasing the arable land, poverty in China, Communism in China, Mao, mass murders there, France, reduction of poverty after 1789, 4 possible improvements in China, consolidation of owned plots of land, "Flurbereinigung" in Prussia, transport facilities, sickness (Zander report), facilities for purchasing tools.
162 China, cheap tools, Banking, supervisory committees & trust, Bilgram on redemption, Freiburg notes at Solingen, reflux principle replacing gold redemption & makes people independent of the supply with gold. Private gold coins in California, not legal tender, that was a good solution, Cosmology theories
163 Schopenhauer, gravity as vital force, matter in the last resort a product of the brain, astronomy & mathematics, irrationality of landownership concept extended into space, interest rates in Berlin
164 Women violated by Russians - bottle of ink used to mark the culprits, each soldiers has only one uniform! Modern painting. 29. 6. 1949: Kenneth de Courcy - no understanding of banking, tax strikes, impossible now? Too much competition in the absence of Free banking. (Rather, too many compete for scarce legal tender. - J.Z.) Money monopoly & land monopoly
165 Henry George, engineering profession, unemployment, Berlin unemployment & small monetary experience of rubble clearing coop with Karstadt department store. Referendum option, for years delayed by politicians, book education, prohibition against teaching reading and writing to slaves, Italian restrictions on literacy, Savoy, Malvida von Meysenbug on ignorance even among society ladies in Italy
166 Artificial insemination, discrimination, children of fathers of 11 and mothers of 9 years in India & Africa. Can certain qualities only be inherited from older parents? International payments restricted by laws. The political conditions an effect of modern monetary laws, laws prevent Free Banking, monetary freedom and panarchism, monetary freedom would diminish statism, literacy in old China, old literature in Russia, reprint of scarce old books
167 CD-ROM book publishing option, Internet, scanning-in books not yet popular among computer fans. It's still much too laborious, happiness. 26. VI. 1949: Railway strike, spelling reform, relaxing of memory after 60. Physics teaches that any influence has some lasting effect. The Norman Conquest had, too, e.g. on spelling.
168 Slang, German joke on spelling. Food production, buring of food, herrings used as manure. Payment system prevented use of such food. Malthusianism and birth rate. Rittershausen and amelioration credits to peasants. Tauser on ameliorations. To make new land arable usually gives poorer results. 2. 7. 1949:
169 Book education, Children & schools, education under Nazis, Nazi youth organisations, compulsory membership & indoctrination there, public schools in Prussia an dUSA
170 "I did not learn Latin and Greek and attended no university." Witchburning, last in Germany 1749. Free Banking needs book education. 14. 7. 1949: Montaigne, possible effect on Russia. Interest and statistics, free development for all interest rates, high interest - a share in high productivity of capital. Present banks not the right institutions to collect capital for long-dated loans, credit coops of Chinese merchants
171 Contributions of Chinese people in payment, clearing, credit sphere, Rueckstrom (reflux), in notes of the issuer. Four Bills, supervisory committees should be admitted not imposed. Freiburg banknotes, gold coins, free gold market, bullion market, Malthus & Yue's view: China is not overpopulated but, largely empty!
172 China: Much land is not cultivated at all, more difficult irrigation options largely unused, capital shortage, gold clauses are prohibited, Chinese paper money deteriorated and deteriorating. Burning of coffee & wheat related to assumed "Dollar shortage". Malthus & herrings. Artificial sales barriers. "Experts". 15. 7. 1949: Malthusianism, grazing vs. rice growing, cattle in China, demand for beef and milk products small in China
173 Pigs and ducks in China. Vegetarianism, Plutarch condemned meat eating, many vegetarians in Greece under Julian, although meat was very cheap, price controls of Diocletian, population growth & cattle breeding. Meat supply a matter of paying for the meat. French development of large African possessions - not undertaken for lack of buyers for additional food supplies. B. in N.Y., 1909 already saw posters: Eat more meat! Not meat was wanted but buyers of meat. Wheat producers are looking for buyers as eager as ever. Wars & large migrations not due to overpopulation. Land in the hands of a few who wanted to hunt and did not permit farming their land. They wanted to eat venison not cattle. (B. makes summarising difficult!)
174 German princes had no better use for their subjects than to lead them into battles. Tacitus on beer drinking Germans. Conclusion: No shortage of grain. 16. 7. 1949: Cimbri in Denmark expelled by high tide, not overpopulation. Only some emigrated. Froude's "History of England", all seen through Malthusianism. Christians & Old Testament. Bertrand Russell, too superficial, Western civilisation, Soviet threat & Malthusianism
175 New credits scarce where gold clauses are prohibited, "gold clause standard", Milhaud's "bons d'achat", Malthus, low marriage age under Henry VIII, & in some US States & in England until shortly before WW I. Henry Dunant's Red Cross & Europe Union proposal in "L'empire romain réconstitué". Reprint of valuable books. Passivity towards alternative publishing & reading media. Suicide of Japanese students upon discovering general uncertainty.
176 Morand's book on this of 1932. Suicide. B.'s own first attempt at 10. Schopenhauer, David Hume & Buddha on suicide. Buddha and Max Mueller on Buddhist Nirvana. Education, visual and acoustic type, Justus Liebig against excess specialisation. Malthus, abundance of herrings. "Economist" should speak about free banking possibilities
177 17. 7. 1949: US government ordered reduction of wheat fields by 17 % for 1950. Malthusians never distinguish capacity of stomach from purchasing power of stomach owners. Transformation of want into demand. Spelling reform, Education, Henry Ford, Individualist should publish laws prohibiting payments in English Pounds. Dollar Scarcity?
178 18. 7. 1949: Erhard, the monetary dictator, speaks for for devaluation to some and appeals to workers to trust int he stability of the DM. Devaluation planned - and denied. SPD little interest in the subject, although devaluation is robbery. Did M. ever favour free choice of value standards? My article on devaluation in PEACE PLANS 8. Union in N.Y. once demanded payment of wages determined in other value standards than paper dollars. No details known.
179 19. 7. 1949: B.'s pension, Badcock & Apostle Paulus on duty, pleasure principle, Beatrice & Sidney Webb, Sir Stafford Cripps, Steuart, a given quantity of means of payment can only produce a limited tax return, to get optimum tax-yield there must be a certain quantity of means of payment in taxpayers' hands. Means of payments on hand can only be provided by Free Banking. Increasing tax revenues by reducing tax rates. Jevons, Sir Robert Peel, politicians. Work harder? Shop rules, unemployment
180 Presently only those workers are employed whose goods and services can be sold for the existing monopoly money. Unemployment. Shortage of food and shortage of jobs mixed up. Bastiat: What is seen and what is not seen. Food production per acre, then and now. Machinery and transport facilities in agriculture, percentage of people agriculturally employed gets smaller and smaller: No indication of food shortage.
181 Agricultural productivity under Soviets by their slave labour. Malthusianism and poverty, Free Trade, central planning. Gold coins spent to not necessarily return fast, but paper money does. Devaluation, paper "pound", erosion: Mr. Fairfield: Our Plundered Planet. Gou Irving Burch, Malthusian
182 Overpopulation never caused war, although many believe this. Waste and destruction during war. Cimbri and Teutones were well nourished. Malthusians believe: Economic or monetary causes of hunger etc. do not exist. The lack of food is observed, also in the case of unemployment - but not the cause. Alexander von Humboldt: Amazonas countries oculd supply much of the world with food. Permit Chinese and Japanese to migrate there. (But end extermination of remaining "red" Indians there! - J.Z., 6.6.03.) Potential of Congo area. Preserving biodiversity otherwise. Private parks and botanic gardens. Free Banking and Free Trade to make population grow towards its optimum. Semi-Free trade is not enough.
183 Stephen King Hall & his mag. China & its monetary conditions: exclusive and forced currency. Soviet power essentially founded on their money monopoly. Kremlin with note printing press more powerful than 9/10 of its armed forces, rebelling against it - without the facilities of monetary freedom. Dictatorships supported by central banking. 20. 7. 1949: Food parcel from M. B. a coffee and tea addict.
184 The contrary is need of what the Malthusians advise. More new house building requires financial freedom.
21. 7. 49: Berlin Magistrate offer of credit to artisans, but not in cash: Very few applicants and low loan total. Reasons for this low response, not only low debtor moral as B. here suggests.
185 25. 7. 49: Western culture, Latin & Greek, other cultures, classical education, Austrians, enlightenment & tolerance, culture in Tsarist Russia. Education of children. Must schooling be compulsory. B. favoured that. Joseph Lancaster's experiment, parental attitudes, book education, theoretical vs. practical knowledge
186 Christianity & Western Culture, modern education methods, Tolstoy, Kropotkin, Tucker, Tolstoy on money, he really means the claim of creditors to cash (coins), even when there may circulate only very little cash. He confuses that claim with money in general. Malthusianism, India, peasants, Prussia, agrarian reform, small farms, Russian farms in WW I
187 Prussian farmers a wealthy class compared with best paid workers in towns - but always groaning to get privileges. India, Kipling's story on all too short leases and their effects. China, too had great land owners. India probably the same. Wheat board in Australia and wheat quotas. Other Australian produce controlled by bureaucratic boards. India, lies on English colonialism, supported by Nazis
188 Korff: "Indien", 1893, reports deserted towns, deserted fields, many square miles, now covered by jungle, reports on agricultural coops, buyers and eaters and transportation facilities were needed. Georgist on failure of short term leases. There are coops and coops. Most are very flawed - but not all are. B.'s correct prediction on Indian population, Mutual savings banks near Madras. "Young India". Mutual Savings Banks a first step to Free Banking. Then local note-issuing banks to enable peasants to pay taxes to local authorities. Their poverty not due to overpopulation. interest rates in India, 5 % monthly, still if paid in kind rather than in cash. Coinage of gold and silver personal treasures into gold and silver coins in India.
189 Free Banking in India might lower the interest rate to 1 % monthly but not to levels as in England. (Permanently? - J.Z., 6.6.03.) Dividing land among children or other arrangements? Roscher. Irrigation in French Africa - if gold clauses were permitted. Smaller families? Freedom, aggression and defence. Rueckstrom
190 Freiburg notes. Ticket money of large firms. (Associations of many small shops as issuers could also achieve wide enough acceptance for their notes. - J.Z. 6.6.03.) Bertrand Russell, superficiality. Vegetarianism. Kropotkin, Bakunin & suicide by hunger. Renounce having children? Let us pay with our own mony! Officials: Put them to productive work - but do not let them govern! A new Watt Tylor is wanted. B.'s last suicide preparations - interfered with by loving friends.
191 26. 7. 1949: Louse Saxe Eby: "The Quest for Moral Law", really scientif about ethics. 1905 Russian revolution. Robbing banks to support revolutions? Imhoff's example, suicide when caught. B.s preferred other method. Financing revolutions properly. B.'s lost manuscript about this.
192 29. 7. 1949: Malthusianism, hunger, famines as consequence of overpopulation not reported in history. Agriculture, further technical possibilities and other requirements for improvements.
193 B. became acturary of "Deutschland" re-insurance company and dealt largely with agriculture. Malthusian images quite wrong. Rather too much food in Germany. Nazi view on this. Overpopulaiton and overproduction sometimes asserted in the same brochure. "Lebensraum" slogan. Similar notions in Japan, whose trade was largely blocked by other nations.
194 Protectionism major factor in leading Japan into war. Milhaud's and B.'s international clearing certificates could have kept it out of the war. (The same could have happened with Germany. - J.Z., 6.6.03.) B. initiated the gremium to draft the Four Law Drafts. Malthusianism. Power of simple but false explanations. Encyclopaedia of best refutations of popular errors, myths & prejudices needed. Enlightenment through maximum participation. Human sacrifices by Aztects. Black Death in England
195 Overpopulation in old Mexico? Diminished by human sacrifices? Agricultural productivity in Middle Ages.
Moloch cult, human sacrifices abolished by Abraham. State the modern Moloch. Malthusians confound difficulties in buying food and selling food with difficulties in producing food. Why did B. still have to enlighten M. on such fundamentals? Especially M., a Free Trade and Free Banking advocate? Providing for old age through children. Example of Yü, 18th male child of a banker at Canton
196 Roscher: US farmers knew that a boy of 6 could already produce the food he eats. Egyptian farmes expected a child of 3 to do the same. Old age assistance through children or through Church or State or investments. Destruction of investment options. Smaller families? Lack of money does not indicate lack of food, although those not having money might be starving.
197 Dismantling (Demontagen) in Germany, motives for and effect on public opinion. Air lift, Manchester Guardian's view on it. Dominion status for Germany. Reparations. Soviets, East Germany, SED, Stalin. A German Soviet republic? Would they have forgotten the war time atrocities committed by Soviet soldiers as fast? Creation of a real Commonwealth, Atomic bombs. W. B. Greene, Mutual Banking: international competion, changed greatly by ending the reign of exclusive currencies.
198 30. 7. 1949: Prof. Vierkandt and his wife: Not all Russians plundered but German fugitives did. Zander. Dr. Israel's experience with Russian soldiers. They did not believe that a Jew had survived and called him a swindler. 5,000 Jewish survivors in Berlin. 31.7.49: Natural demand, monetary demand & Malthusianism. "Free Banking".
1. 8. 1949: Density of population and wealth. Malthusianism, optimum population. Abundant land per head. Flight from land is mainly for higher wages in towns.
199 Primitive vs. somewhat advanced Malthusianism. Colin Clark's figures. Russia's military strength by a mentality opposed to Malthusianism. 2. 8. 1949: Low population favourable to high standard of living? If true, Brazilians would be better off than Swedes or Canadians.
200 Or Eskimos. People in new countries better off than those in old countries? First settlements in North America: They nearly starved to death. Same experience in South America. Exceptions existed in California and in Siberia. Agricultural fertility mostly a product of human labour. Robert Owen: One agricultural labourer can support people. Godwin's refutation of Malthus. Ireland, famines, emigration, living standard according to Colin Clark. Example of Norway. Power of simple ideas: Example of astrology.
201 Malthusianism, Free Banking. Import payment with pounds. Devaluations, dollar shortage", free exchange rate, balance of trade, redemption of goods instead of in gold, in international trading as well.
202 Tax reductions would increase yields. School education, inflation and dearness. 3. 8. 1949: Malthusianism
4. 8. 1949: German libraries 4/5th destroyed. English not as much. Dutch peasants plan to increase arable land by 22 %. Consolidation of split up blocks of land only via legislation? Perhaps only because of legal, juridical and bureaucratic difficulties placed upon private contracts of this kind? De Soto on South American conditions
203 Soviet system and Nazi system still largely preserved through preserving their legislation and institutions. As a result, "the free market" and "capitalism", "free enterprise", "Free Trade" and profit get the blame rather then the remnants of statist interventionism. How to get rid of planners. Need to answer the "How?" Some doctrines for a new religion, based on duties, rights and liberties.
204 Does the "community of Saints" of Christians and Tibetans have some foundaiton in reality? Kant. Saints? Saints are revolutionaries. 5. 8. 1949: Meulen too opinionated and too much opposed to some fundamental liberties, even in the sphere of Monetary Freedom and Free Trade, where he should have enlightened rather than doubted. W. B. Greene: The debtor shall always have the right to pay in specie, but the creditor shall not be entitled to demand specie. The gambling nature of most promises to pay in cash. No legal tender not even for gold coins.
205 Mutual Banks might not only tend to reduce interest rates - at least for turn-over credit, but increase interest rates for capital investments and yet find favour among those otherwise not considered credit-worth at all. Gold travels where its purchasing power is greatest. Perhaps in some communities a discount for sound notes will not arise at all. Fixed price for gold and Greene. Gold prohibitions & legal tender. Price increase through note issues? Only normal level will be restored. Production will be increased and thereby prices will be lowered. Discounted notes and price for goods. French laws clear on differences between coops and stock companies. Profits will continue in coops. Profits in cooperative banking may be considerable.
206 Only imposed conventions are obstacles to progress. (Under voluntary conventions the associations involved progress only as fast as they want to. - J.Z., 6.6.03.) Stirner explained that a well organised coop is impossible wihtout realising the principles of a perfect individualism. Modern coops, Mutual Banks. Acceptance obligation only for amounts owed to the issuing bank and, perhaps, a little more. Acceptance posters iun stores. Greene. Unless redemption in rare metals by the issuer, on demandm can be proven it remains a swindle. Acceptance of emergency money without gold redemption. Unemployment, unless workers are willing to accept payment in alternative currencies. Note issue better by coop store than by employer's store.
207 Then coop store might develop into banker for this employer and for other employers, too. Mutual Bank step by step. Cooperation and competition are not necessarily opposites. Successes of coops led to attempts to suppress them. Hitler simply replaced their top managers by his adherents. Before WW I state employees and officials were not allowed to become members of coops. Training in the issue of inconvertible (into metal at issuer) and convertible notes. Convertible notes systems failed in spite of prolonged training and practices - because they went beyond their sound and natural limits and promised more than they could keep. "Fixed price for gold." "Drain of gold?" Not under Greene's monetary system. Without such entitlement of the creditor this is impossible. Banishment of gold from our exchange system? Gold coins should not be banished but tolerated and can serve a valuable role as value standards, on a free gold market and in pricing of goods, services and labour, payable in gold value-accounting notes. Gold coins to be neither banished nor imposed. Mutual Banks need no more trust but can make use of distrust. Discounts drive notes back to the issuer and his debtors. Balances need not be paid in gold, either. Legal tender for gold coins?
208 Free gold market, free gold coin circulation. They should be refusable but that intention should be declared in advance. Progress in banking without trust, paing with acknowledgements to owe something, the possibility to divide such IOUs into suitable pieces, equal in denominations to coins, a function that could be performed easily by banks, on the "banking principle". Distinguish, like Greene, the acknowledgement to owe a debt from the promise to pay it in a particular scarce and exclusive currency. Person law distinguishes between legal tender and legal claim. Middle Ages, charter of merchant guilds insisted on clearing options becoming exhausted before a legal action against a member could be started. The merchants had a right to pay by clearing. Modern German commercial law says that a creditor cannot decline to accept payment offered in the usual manner, that means, in practice, by clearing.
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END OF SUMMARY OF PAGES IN SECTION I. Others are invited to supply better and shorter summaries. J.Z.
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Contents Section II
of file: Meulen - Beckerath correspondence, pages 1 - 208, 5. 8. 1949 - 5. 3. 1950


Contents of Volume II
Letters of U. v. Beckerath
to Henry Meulen

II/1 5. 8. 1949: Historians, Churchill, Napoleon, Germany in 1811 and England in 1949, Alexander I, German nationalism, Stalin, Soviets, Demontagen (dismantlings). - 7.8.1949: Banknotes a loan by the public or note-issuing the right to raise loans from the public? Metal redemptionism as a result of this belief in the supposed privilege. True nature of a note is that of a clearing certificate - thus the greatest amount of notes does not require a redemption fund. Acceptance obligation at par of debtors of the bank & Rueckstrom (reflux) principle. Clearing, trust & distrust. Legislation, clearing, credit and insurance development. (Condensing dense texts is hard! - J.Z.)
II/2 Insurance, realisation upon demand of clearing certificates. A real credit instrument is not realised on demand.
8. 8. 1949: Saint Exupéry's "Terre des Hommes" - Earth is almost deserted! Overpopulation? North Africa, Incas
9. 8. 1949 & 14. 8. 49: Productivity per acre but agriculture's problem is still selling, not producing. China, not good in cultivating new land. Influence of lack of capital, sound value standard etc.
II/3 Anti-Malthusians do not ignore the selling, social and political difficulties to production. Atomic weapons to destroy polar ice? (Probably his worst proposal. - J.Z. Tse-Tse fly in Africa. Wheat production of major countries.
Yield increase technically possible but not always econmically
II/4 Meliorations. - 10. 8. 1949: Vanity, if only the politicians will stand out of the way, let us free the exchanges, rebelling against their regulations is justified. Freedom to buy a personal right, permitting every kind of resistance.
Exports, Kant, check your premises. Who exports? Price level, index numbers, Irving Fisher, cheap vs. expensive countries trade between them
II/5 Tenfold price increases, coffee, tea, trade always possible and profitable under freedom - i.e., without foreign exchange controls etc. Dollar shortage? & free exchange rate, standard of living in England and Germany
II/6 Paying imports with the money of the exporters govt., invented by Rashin, taken up by Schacht, to enslave not only workers, aroused enthusiasm among the bureaucrats of the world & led to general adoption. Free exchange rates not only for governmental currencies but private ones. Pharaos enslaved workers for pyramid building. For what do the bureaucrats enslave us? Abaelard'. Unemployment & Free Banking. Check on extravagant wages: Lack of means of payment
II/7 Wage check through transformation into coops, optimally through proper capitalistic purchases of enterprises by their employees, using suitable free market means to finance this take-over bid. Advantages for all through this transformation. Attitudes or workers, employers & large land-owners, land reform. - 13. 8. 49: Not to be proven but to assumed is a natural tendency in population to grow to its optimum
II/8 Natural tendency of the population to remain stationary once the optimum is attained. Self-preservation of species. New faculties must develop, such as conceiving Free Bankind ideas & communicating them. Wasteful way of nature, with seeds, also with anarchists. Tyrants are best fought by creating conditions of maximum liberty somewhere, from which it would almost automatically spread. However, that does not make tyrannicide superfluous. But militarily fighting and defeating his military machine is the worst approach. Tolstoy I human soldier ants. Great reformers not only conceive ideas but also find suitable words for them. "Nature"? Survival instinct & its limits, territorialism, individual secessionism, full exterritorial autonomy & use of alternative media
II/9 Required funds are available on a gold basis, otherwise not. Productivity in agriculture. Size of land-holdings. Restrictions of wheat planting in US. Commerce entrusted to bureaucrats. Only one remedy: A large cudgel and chasing them out. Wage level has nothing to do with Free Trade options. (Rather total costs per unit matter for its sales potential. - J.Z., 7.6.03.) Without bureaucracy England could offer many goods cheaper than others could, and thus with high UK wages. Technology was England's ally for centuries and can be again - if the cudgel is applied. (Also to union functionaries as bureaucratic interventionists! - J.Z., 7.6.03.) English machine work at the time of Napoleon I.
II/10 Machines & manpower, not austerity measures but freedom to buy & sell and freedom in the choice of means of payments, bureaucracy, free the exchange by the cudgel! Effect of free exchange rates: balancing exports & imports automatically. Gold standard, gold coins like nails, but tyranny to compel debtors to pay with gold coins. Creditors to be served by clearing & other means of payment. Only legally claimable gold is objectionable, not gold that debtors can and want to offer in payment or that is merely agreed upon as value standard. Tolstoy: "The Slavery of our Time", "in which he proposes to abolish money & replace it by a Christian conviction". Economists.
Persian old law: Debtor must pay in gold only if this is expressly agreed upon, otherwise local currency is the means of payment up to the value of as many gold coins as was agreed upon. And even in these expressed agreements the creditors, including employees, in practice took every means of payment, including clearing. (Just like in Germany, before WW I. - J.Z., 7.6.03.)
II/11 Cheating and Turks, Jews, Greeks, Armenians & Persians. More honesty in business, especially payment arrangements. Greene & Tucker taught: Substitute verity in place of fiction. Not only a moral doctrine but an economic and social one, too. Gold as a value standard in contracts & used to price goods in stores, while no gold coins circulate. Devaluation, a violation of personal rights & legalised theft. Gallows currency. Rueckstrom, reflux, bankers. "The" German? "The"English?
II/12 Vansittard, Soviet Empire & Malthusianism, dismantling policy, defence, war industries? Beatrice Webb, King Hall, Education, Seneca, freedom, slavery, freedom for aduls, not minors. For the latter only as much as is possible. Children, schools & learning, increasing physical size of youths
II/13 Education system or miseducation system. - 14. 8. 1949: Exploitation or belief that it exists: India as example, nationalism, leaders, tyrannical or ignorant govts. Tyrannical although merely via modern prescriptionism, leading to weakness. Powerful bureaucracy does not make for a powerful government. Free competition & free consumer sovereignty in all spheres. Class warfare mythology & its danger
II/14 Expropriation of politicians and bureaucrats. Bureaucrats submit to any conqueror. Governments neglects defence because it is busy with licensing barrows & such things. Soviet attacking England, putsch. Soviets would come in the name of liberty, promises, price controls, execution of saboteurs, etc., like the occupation of Czechoslovakia, Poland etc. Then US air raids against every occupied English town. Political significants of converting enterprises to coops. Beatrice Potter - later Webb. Organising factory workers into a coop, leasing the factory, then negotiating the purchase option. Payment by a different kind industrial bonds.
II/15 Regular instalment "payments" or "acceptances" of repayment obligations for goods and services offered. Workers as proprietors will improve plants and rationalise otherwise, too. Higher usage rate of patents. No more strikes. Interests of workers change. Appeals of Communists become riduculous. That's why they fear cooperative or voluntary socialism. Most workers now prefer wage system. But the example of others will be infective. Submissiveness will be reduced. Advantage for proprietors. Purchase cheaper than civil war. Decentralising coops. Bata system & gang work described by Zola in French mines. No German journal will accept articles on this. (By now there are a few! - J.Z., 7.6.03.)
II/16 Military aspects. Decentralising Germany, German soldiers serving in England, ending demontages, German cantons, cantonal mimlitias, recall of diehards by plebiscites. (He did not always & consistently advocate panarchies. Perhaps he wanted to suggest to M. only as much as he might be willing to accept.) - 15. 8. 1949: Increased production in "soil erosion" States like Kansas, Oklahoma & Texas. Maximum world population. Telepathy through space observed but how far does it go? From star to star? Through time? Over what time differences? Wages in Germany & in England
II/17 Different living standards, productivity & labour costs per unit, agricultural yields, long-term order agreements vs. producing for the current market (compare dealings in futures! - J.Z., 7.6.03), or consumers organised to employ workers.
II/18 Details different from profit sharing. Bata system, gang work, work coops, autonomous work groups, organisation development. Burma rice producing areas & yields, Japan & Java compared. - 17. 8. 1949:
II/19 Changed English mentality, "leading" class faild in every respect, thought to be "exploiters" but proven even to be unable to exploit, leaving masses of unemployed "unexploited" as workers and consumers. "Exploiters" as statist as workers, insisting on welfare for the rich. In Russia they were replaced by others that at least understand the art of exploiting, however primitively. Ammunition factories are now built just like old Egyptians built pyramids, as protection against unemployment! But the Egyptian victims were angry rather than grateful to Cheops and Chefren. Zander, lady Prof. Vierkandt. Acts of men as phenomena of nature use of atomic bombs by nature?
18 .8. 1949: 2 different gold standard vs. paper standard
II/20 Assume all prices double expressed in gold units, effects, automation of old gold standard, right of creditors to gold remains unperceived as flaw. Difference when right of creditors to payment gold is abolished. Prices & imports. Prices expressed in gold units but payable otherwise. Private certificates with acceptance foundation. Distrust, discounts - and their redemption at par and disappearance. Shop foundation rather than gold redemption foundation - expandable to the limits of production and wants. Even price reductions to be expected. Sales costs would go down, mass production would be increased, with its savings.
II/21 Plant improvements increased, shop rules no longer observed. Distrust, well organised, no less important than trust. Economists mostly deal only with the exclusive paper money options. Merely replacing gold coins by fiat money makes matters worse. Monopoly central bank becomes master of the country & prescribes econmic conditions. Impoverishment with the best intentions. The planners can do no more good than the best trained bear in a china store. - 19.8.1949: Great agricultural coops in Italy, leasing bankrupt estates after 1905: Advantages. Theodor Hertzka's Freeland, Buchez before him. Open coops
II/22 Must Hertzka's open coop principle be as extensively applied? PRA principle: Nobody to have a monopoly.
Jefferson & sunset laws. Shop councils and their veto. Wrongfulness of this practice. - 20. 8. 1949: Devaluation, a crime. Mentality of old Greeks. Odyssee, Odysseus & his bad luck when he tried to rob the Kikones, bararians who dared to defend themselves effectively against the noble hero. A bottle of Schnapps offered often saved Berliners from being plundered and raped.
II/23 Poles and Czechs often were worse. Berliners failed to destroy liquor stocks. Drunken soldiers committed atrocities in consequence. Homer's robber romances. Modern men, regarding devaluations, still at the stage of the old Greeks towards robberies. - 22. 8. 1949: States not to be treated as individuals. Obligations and liberty of single Germans from a standpoint of reciprocity. Every man has a right to choose his own government, but only so as Tucker understood the think, Auberon Herbert & others, as opposed to territorialism. Allies did not have the duty to instal a new territorial regime over West Germany, & endow it with power, e.g. that of monetary despotism.
II/24 For maximum personal liberty division into communites as small as is politically & economically possible. Here B. did not consistently go to the limits set only by individual sovereignty, individual secessionism & exterritorial autonomy for volunteer communities, probably anticipating Meulen's conventional objections revealed in the last letter exchange. Theory incompletely expounded by Proudhon in his "Du principe fédératif" & practice in Switzerland and Germany before 1914 (1860? - J.Z.) Communists & other centralists: Do your things to and for your self, like the sect whose chief is the Aga Khan. Do not compel others to imitate you. Territorial federalism still requires brute force for its protection. Standing armies, militia. No other means to avoid a slavery worse than Hitlerism for the whole West. (Elsewhere he favours military insurrections & revolutions against such regimes.)
If there were no defence against regimes like the Soviets - and no other steps taken against them. …
II/25 Atomic bombs of Soviets. Hate of Germans due to continued dismantlings. Czech army won over in first weeks of WW I. Desertion plan example. Vansittard. Nazi propaganda. - 28. 8. 1949: Forgery & central banking vs. Free Banking. Now computer chips inserted in forced & exclusive currency may prolong its life against the threat to it from forgers. Money issue monopoly vs. right of workers to be supplied with means of exchange required to uphold production, exchange media which cannot be supplied by central banking, nor by present bankers. In SPD meeting such ideas were laughed at. Hitler regime's forgery of English Pound notes. Notes of small bankers will not be forged. Forgeries would be detected too soon. Sales of fine gold. Machiavelli pointed out, in 1532, that all armed prophets won. Hitler and Stalin as armed prophets, won, at least temporarily. Their doctrine a religion, although a very bad one. Greek history. Spartans absend in war for a long time. Women pointed out: No children, State in danger. Send 50 handsome & virile warriors to propagate the race. The 50 were sent & did their duty. But their children, 20 years later were discriminated against.
II/26 Suggestion on one possible reason for downfall of Sparta. Sparta's children may more often have been produced by male household slaves than by these 50 "heroes". - 29. 8. 1949: 1949 price of Webster's Complete English Dictionary. - 3. 9. 1949: Fire insurance, insurance business risk
II/27 Jacque Bernoulli on probabilities also Buffon in his Arithmétique morale, special clause in insurance contracts to cover extreme risks. Gotha Clause. Value preserving clauses. Redemption system and its risk. It is much larger. Loan certificates. Jevons on Money. Manchester & Liverpool merchants still in the 19th century, considered clearing to be unreliable. Nazi laws prohibited accounts that could only be used for clearing purposes. Clearing means independence from the States central bank. The Nazis wanted everyone to be dependent on it. (So did the Soviets and their system still prevails now in Russia & its former satellite States and in the Democracies. - J.Z., 6.6.03.) Monetary despotism of Chamillard, minister of Louis XIV.
II/28. Tyrannical monetary laws considere to be stabilising ones, by people & average economists. Marx. No more compulsion than is necessary. Means of payment, based on clearing are to be permitted. Any other principle's practice may freely compete with "clearing certificates. Statist vs. near anarchist mentality. Tucker. Four Law drafts. B. kept his anarchist opinions prudently to himself in the circle that drafted the Four Law Drafts, upon his initiative. Difference between notes of the old style and clearing certificates. Credit involves a time factor. Instance claims are another matter. Zander explained the difference well in his article on railway money. Railway money is not a loan raised from the public. But if certificate holders must wait for the realisation of their claims, then a credit is involved and certificates become a loan raised from the public. Shop foundation for notes is essential rather than a burdensome obligation for the debtors &, naturally, in the interest of the debtors of the banks - the shops.
II/29 Distrust and discount possibility an essential part of the monetary freedom system. (Free pricing and free enterprise, free competition and full consumer sovereignty are essential, in the offer and acceptance of the "product" "money", too. - J.Z., 7.6.03.) Merely trust of the kind given to postage stamps is required. The obligation to redeem in the own goods and services is not a burden but an attractive feature. Christian ethic opposes justice. Kant insists on it, even if all scoundrels in the world should perish as a result, the true meaning of "Fiat Justitia, pereat mundus". Pleasure & altruism. Nature will perform its intentions by our actions & thus provides its incentives. Atomic bombs. Achilles. Glory vs. doing one's duty as far as one can. Consumer coops. Laws on coupons.
II/30 Avalanches of laws: Only escape: individual secessionism combined with exterritorial autonomy, started by a monetary revolution or tax strike or by soldiers deserting a warlike or despotic government en mass and establishment of genuine citizen-militias of volunteers for the protection of individual rights. Now we have combined the worst aspects of absolute monarchism & mercantilism. Unemployment. Soviet managers, coops, workers should confront the real barriers for wages, which they would have to as cooperators. Free Banking. Exploitation of employers by employees. - 4. 9. 1949: Luther. Cassia, an ancient remedy.
II/31 Rheumatism & consuming liquids before going to bed. - 5. 9. 1949: Colour bar. Hereros. Negroes & German colonialists. Individual vs. collective responsibility. B. member of République supranationale, founded by H. L. Follin and of the Cosmopolitische Union, founded by Werner Ackermann. Both rejected nationalism. Free Banking. Duprat on collective responsibility. Senegal Negroes perfect gentlemen compared with SS-Men who spread Nazi-"Culture" in Poland & Ukraine. Intermarriage? Portugese experience. Personal experience? Varies.
II/32 Superstition among Indian women and women of lower clases in Germany. Suaheli women. Racist literatue in Germany after 1870, unsuccessful. No strike against employment of Negro workers or discrimination against mixed couples. Goebbles himself stressed that Germans must now begin to think in racist terms and that the NSDAP had to "educate" the people in this sense. In Southern US States such admonitions would have been superfluous. Germans and slavery in the US. Negroe soldiers among Germans. Negroe soldiers as Blockade breakers. Racist propaganda after WWI work of a small but well trained group. Dismantlings in German, Victor Gollanca and the "Jew-Question". Machiavelli. Napoleon & Prussia
II/33 English govt in and for Germany. Czecho-Slovakia during WW II: People listened to BBC but worked in Nazi ammunition factories. Dismantlings felt as threat to jobs of workers. Stephen King-Hall, defence practically non-existent. Treatment in England of a German professor, a Jew, who had fled to England. As a German he was held there held collectively responsible for crimes of the Nazis and thus fled to the Soviets and helped them build atomic bombs. Victor Gollancz opposes that "principle". Nietzsche asked not: Where do you come from? - but: Where do you go? National sovereignty & S. R. de la Mohotiere. Rather unite Anglo-Saxon with Saxons that remained in Germany.
II/34 Nations are no persons but mere notions. Accidental origins of the French "nation" & the English one. There were no English air raids on Berlin but just some unlucky pilots, no more responsible than soldiers at Jerusalem who crucified Christ. Under right religion Germans would have killed Hitler before he could do harm & English pilots would have refused to obey orders to attack civilians. Elements for a new and liberating religion in Kant and Schopenhauer. Humanity considered as one nation, whose real unity is concealed by nationalists. Reparations: Should Germans require them from the descendants of Mongols, who e.g., burned Breslau in 1241? Are the children of conquerors responsible for the crimes of their fathers, or of the mothers, if they worked in ammunition factories? Spread of sound alternative ideas with the use of sound, efficient and affordable alternative media, not just with print, websites and e-mail?
II/35 7.9.1949: Jewish militants protesting against film "Oliver Twist" in Berlin. Effects of such actions. Thoughts about them.
II/36 Often such activism achieves the opposite of what was intended. Such incidents and reactions to them could have been used as an excuse for the occupation of West Berlin by the Soviets. Comparison with the September 1792 murders in Paris, undertaken only be a few hundred fanatics. Hardly any Nazis left in West Berlin. Nationalism is the same, whether Nazi or Jewish or any other. Internaitonalism and Cosmopolitanism were wide-spread in Germany before 1945. Fichte on individuals withdrawing from the State. Syndicalist trade unions supported internationalism. Popular view on internationalism. Wilson's 17 points. League of Nations, Mussoliny's attack on Abyssinia
II/37 Communists & internationalism: Stalin-Hitler Pact. Treatment of German prisoners by Soviets. British Labour Party & dismantlings. Cosmopolitanism and Internationalism must be created. Old internationalists thought highly of Jews - because of their internationalism. Some Jews really said: For us Internationalism is a national task and consequently we reject Zionism. Cosmopolitians considered as mere visionaries, while the practical men, on both sides, mass produce mass murder devices. Clearing-House Certificates as used in 1893 essentially the same as Greene's notes except that these certificates were, very wisely, not used for long term loans. Warner's system, rather than Meulen's is suitable for rightful revolutionaries. - 9. 9. 1949: British nationalism
II/38 Territorialism, terrorism, loyalty, patriotism - Mutual Assured Destruction madness all in an wrongful and self-defeating combination, which would be abolished via panarchies estabished via individual secessionism. Strassbourg or United Europe program for defence against Soviet threat. - 14. 9. 1949: Anti-Malthusian
article for The Individualist
II/39 Profit sharing flawed. Free Banking vs. Communist Revolution, Aristarch's heliocentric system, economic interests of the priesthood. One place only needed for the practice of monetary freedom. The world must come to see it & investigate details. Unemployed should lease shut-down firms and issue purchasing certificates for the rent. Liberty for purchasing certificates not redeemable in gold. - There is not right to strike. But there is a right to give notice and a right to rightfully take over the shop, or whatever, as a cooperative, with a businesslike proposition.
II/40 Nature. Some of its blunders in creating men. Courage for resistance, compared with that of baboons, future vision too limited. Obedience to commands. ("For every tyrant a thousand ready slaves!") - 15. 9. 1949: Privatization trend because officials produced nothing but corruption and deficits. A happy exception from Berlin during the war. Many exceptions e.g. in the long Chinese history? Book on the subject would be short.
II/41 Privately provided pension to Chinese officials as long as they did not attempt to rule. Laotse. Free Trade and freedom in the payments sphere. - 16. 9. 1949: Labour Party point of view as expressed by Tom Braddock, M.P.
John Cade in Shakespeare's "Henry VI". Scientific socialism vs. "State socialism". Soviets esteemed certain kinds of brainwork and paid it highly. Savings are acknowledgements of labour whose exchange into goods is delayed. The share of that labour in the products it helped to produce, should be just. Thus even Soviets are interested in savings institutions
II/42 Factory managers in Soviet Union, many believe, better paid than corrsponding managers in the West, taking average income of workers as a measure. Mentality under wage system different from that under cooperative forms. A sensible coop would hire good managers and pay them well. - 17. 9. 1949: Collective responsibility & Bible and whole modern political literature. Questions on it. Case of Saar people and of Tatiana Leontieff, who shot a Swiss "bourgeois"
II/43 Sinaida Konnopliennikowa shot Russian general Min, accusing him of being a suppressor of a strike. Murder of empress Elisabeth of Austria by anarchist Lucchesini, who said that any member of the ruling class deserves death.
Supporters of the principle almost completely fail to discuss it. No book explains it. If it existed, it should explain how an unarmed group of subjects is able to remove dictators or tyrants who are obeyed by those who are armed. Gibbons estimate on military force requirement to support a government. Subjects are defenceless prey of an obedient army, even a small one. Outrage in Germany about anti-semitic acts, would it have helped in the face of the armed forces of the government? Adam Smith on the need for a militia to avoid enslavement by a govt. US militia or more than 15 million men. (Alas, controlled by the govt.! And with little knowledge of and appreciation for individual rights and libertarian defence and liberation methods. - J.Z., 7.6.03.)
II/44 Not "The Germans acquiesced … and must share the blame" but: "Those Germans who acquiesced …" Should Russians be blamed for acts of the Kremlin (they were, by the nuclear "weapons" and the nuclear "strength" and "deterrence" policy of Western governments". - J.Z., 7.6.03) and Spaniards for the acts of Franco etc.? Dismantling. Political consequences - have nothing to do with revenge, forgiveness, morality or punishment etc.
Ethics. Me a Christian? Proper doctrines of Christ are lost. Four evangiles did not understand him. Christ probably distinguished sympathisers from disciples, with prescriptions on offering the other cheek meant only for the latter.
Alruism, egoism, Kantian. Louise Saxe Eby's "The Quest for Moral Law". Alruism, pleasure & duty. Strong individuals, righteousness & society. Society, as a mass of average men, seldom knows what is right. Monasteries, solitude or suicide mentioned as alternatives, but not panarchies.
II/45 The market-quotation of rights is low. Roman reproacht to Christians: Men, who do not fear eath in any situation, cannot be governed. Territorial governments may find their limits in right to ignore the State: Herbert Spencer's "Social Statics", first edition, chapter XIX. Laotse. (If men come not to fear death in the defence of or real individual liberties, because they are very valuable to them, then really social life might experience its first flowering! Even while the usual mere socialising might disappear. Perhaps that was the real meaning of Laotse, here? - In some "societies" life has few strong attractions and thus death is not feared. A soldier's life can be made so miserable & his survival chances can be reduced so close to zero, that he might come to fight fearlessly, almost welcoming death as a relief. Some suicided when a dense artillery barrage approached. They did not want to survive as cripples, if they survived. - J.Z., 7. 6. 03.) Cooperation, committees, managers, wage system. Free Banking & social justice, profits, wages. Cooperative socialism, resistance to it stronger among workers than among employers or governments. Exploitation notions. Gold standarld in Germany 1932 & 1913. Colour Bar
when there is no longer an exclusive currency?
II/46 Nations - the modern gods? Sympathises with Proudhon's "Principle fédératif" but regrets creating manyfederal central powers, including the "rights" to inflate, deflate and devaluate. No evidence that there must be a paper money with legal tender, on the contrary. Wars, aggressive ones, and legal tender. Full employement does not need legal tender issues, either. - 30. 9. 49: The monetary freedom movement: A leaking boat out of sight of land, manned by two old and sick people, one very sick! Brain & stomach connection. Write! What average economists & politicians write is unimportant
II/47 Vita cerebralis - the real human vita. The depressing and dumbing down effects of reading, watching or listening to the news. Writing & publishing on alternative media. Ball point pen. Nonsense of foreign exchange controls. Flaws in foreign trade statistics. Spending one's paper money abroad enforces a corresponding export. Zander lectured on this in Geneva. Either Britain or her foreign exchange controls must die. Acharnians of Aristophanes as analogy. If the Acharnians weret to choose between their baskets or their existence, they were unable to sacrifice their baskets. Cost of living in England excessive? Not reckoned in gold
II/48 Atomic explosion in Russia, Soviet censorship, Notes from Berlin, edited by Meulen. Starting a free bank - by a single merchant or a coop. Greene & Tucker would probably not consider the mutual form as essential. S. P. Andrews in "The Science of Society" considered only the case of a merchant in a small town. Practice of many merchants before 1863, although they did not know of Andrews. Meinl's issues during Great Inflation, 1921-1923.
1. X. 1949: No unemployment in England! Generally dirigism increases unemployment. Mussolini's practice, same in Germany. (Not to forget the forced labour batallions, having to work for pennies a day plus support. - J.Z., 7.6.03.) Sales of arms to the government is assured. Sales of consumer goods to consumers, for scarce govt. money is not.
II/49: English increased productivity since 1900 taxed away, according to Meulen. Collective responsibility. Peaceful Mennonites (and Quakers - J.Z) did not want to fight, until they say the atrocities committed by Red Indians. War creates moments without satisfactory solutions. (It is itself, usually, a quite unsatisfactory "solution". - J.Z., 7. 6.03.) Balkan war practice. Partisans warfare. Atrocities on all sides. 1870/71 war between Prussia & France. Frank-tireurs. Moltke ordered that the district had to pay a high contribution if these murderers could not be found, distributed to the units whose members suffered the atrocities. That reduced retaliatory actions. Bombardment of Paris to be blamed on Bismarck et al convincing King Williams. Duprat's view again. Voters for Hitler were asses. But the outvoted were less guilty.
II/50 Hitler's elections not honest ones. Not even democratic ones are, mostly. Already Weimar Republic did not protect rights sufficiently against totalitarians, brown & red. Leadership principle, dictatorship, libertarian revolution program still missing, Iraq, Saddam Hussein. Libertarian peace program? www.panarchy.info/ Heaven, collective responsibilty & the Bible. Technique for opposing tyrannies. Growth of statism. David Hume on government of Louis XIV being better than that of Athens and Rome at their best. Man is only half-finished still.
II/51 The capacity to revolt & for finding out the best means is more important than many other human abilities. We were largely bred by slaves. Rebellious spirits were exterminated for a long time & thus had less offspring. Territorialism effects even here. Ethics, Christ, surviving reports seem to be on a real man. Some Bible references for this. Buddha and miracle reports. Development of Buddha's views. Religions all so full of lies and deceptions. True teachings of Christ unknown, according to Kant.
II/52 Christ's ethics according to Louise Saxe Eby. Chinese Ethics. Islamic ethics, abstention from alcoholic drinks. Ethics of Epikuros. Kant. Spencer: Social Statics: If only 1914 & 1939 millions of German soldiers had followed his suggestion. (How few of them had ever read this chapter and how few of these had fully comprehended it and would have been able to apply it consistently? Most of today's libertarians still don't! - J.Z., 7.6.03.) "Dollar shortage" also the result of "exclusive currency" practice. Clearing certificate alternative.
II/53 Cataracts & eye bathing, suitable diet also important for eyes. Army's role and that of Hindenburg, the old traitor, in the rise of Hitler, quite unkown abroad. 2. X. 1949: Some scientists distinguish dominants and sub-dominants, like Aristotle. Botanist Reinke, who still lived 1900, invented the name. Some details. In Kant & Schopenhauer this doctrine plays an important role. Plato link: Platonic ideas. Van Helmont, Buffon.
II/54 Mind over matter aspects, Jesus, Niebuhr & spoof on Niebuhr's destructive criticism. "Omnia in ominia". Christ refusing to heal a non-Jewish girl, later gave up such a narrow view. His diminishing nationalism. At last he became an Antisemite - i.e. he opposed the narrow nationalism and ritual-ridden religion of the then existing Jews, not an Antisemite in the modern meaning. Goethe on history as needing re-writing from time to time. Bees.
II/55 Bees intelligent enough to conserve their food rather than burn it. Will insects continue life on Earth after an atomic war? On strikes particularly for workers that work socially, not legally, for the community rather than an employer. English payments to USA in sterling. Issue of their own money is a better instrument of revolution than are barricades etc. See Tucker on this.
II/56 Medical treatment. New methods, like that of M.'s doctor, should be published soon and receive criticism. Thinking, together with others. Devaluation: a gruesome comparison. Important ideas arise often at the same time in different heads. Ideas Archive of Kurt Zube, suggestion by Clavel Blount & article in Reader's Digest. Moore's Utopia, Bacon's Atlantis. British Youth. Free Banking game for children? Fichte on interventionism against despotic regimes
II/57 Alas, his suggestion was not applied 1933. Then, with few losses, WW II could have been avoided. Now those then responsible and powerful hold ignorant, stupid and unarmed voters responsbile, who, by February 1933 saw what fools they had been. Alas, free societies and States, deserving the term, are still missing. From territorial governments nothing better could be expected. Even anarchists and libertarians have not yet sufficiently pondered their alternatives. - 11. X. 1949: Protection against inflaiton by free choice of value standards, gold value clauses. Price level rise is a consequence of inflation and not inflaiton itself. Even Truman counfounded that regularly - and was not publicly corrected by "economists". Protection against deflation requires right to issue and to associate with others for this. Decrease of price level, unemployment etc. are consequences of deflation, not deflation itself.
12. X. 1949: Raw potatoe used as medicine. Often used in hospitals. Also for burns & cosmetic purposes & skin wounds.
II/58 13. X. 1949: Connect idea of sound value standard with nationalism. Central banks as "guardians" of currencies. Territorialism & central banking closely linked. Party unity more threatened by support for Georgism than for Free Banking. Single Taxers and rises of land prices due to devaluations and inflations. Not even land owners are to be treated as serfs of the government under one rationalisation or the other. Proprietary communities & other tolerant land reform options.
II/59 Free Banking need not be imposed. I merely requires that it be no longer prohibited. Right to agree with others on a stable value basis. Political independe without monetary freedom is of little worth: "like galvanising a corpse". October 1923 Hamburg declared itself monetarily independent from Berlin. Interesting anecdote about it.
II/60 14. X. 1949: Chinese money "reform". Still a "modern" system that caused most of modern China's troubles.
II/61 Tax foundation money, in Austria and most of the German language area. Lorena von Stein on tax foundation. Steuart long before him, went beyond him to an obligation to publish as much tax foundation money that means of payment for due taxes are not lacking. Without them, as B. often said, taxation amounts to torturing a deaf and dumb victim in order to extract a confession from him. Principle: Value by acceptance, so as gold coins are accepted: Readiness-to-accept-principle. Tax foundation money is just a special application of it. Greene on it. Even bad governments, which do not pay their debts, may be trusted to levy taxes. Such a money is not debt of the government but a cheque drawn on the amount which the taxpayer "owes"the government.
II/62 Trust in FUTURE realisation options is quite another kind of trust. These two kinds of trust are usually confounded, as are short-term turnover credits or genuine exchange media with long term capital securities. Consequences of State paper money without sufficient taxfoundation. 1. Trust of a creditor to be paid at promised date. 2. Trust of note bearer that the is and will always be an opportunity to utilise his notes, especially right now. No proper word for the note holder. Monetary minuteman? "momime?
II/63 Governments must distinguish means it can raise by taxes and those it must raise by a loan. (They also resort to confiscations or compulsory loans and borrowings, e.g. of accumulated old age funds, for their current projects, even armament costs, like the Nazis did. - J.Z., 7.6.03.) Notes at par it can only raise for due taxes. Lansburgh demanded death penalty for inflationist officials. Full monetary freedom the better approach. A Rabbi of Wilnus compiled from the Talmud all its monetrary prescriptions, which insist on monetary honest as an essentical element of the Jewish character. That feature should have been introduced into Zionism. Zander.
II/64 Monetary despotism also in Israel, destroying B.'s sympathies for the State of Israel. Jewish territorial nationalism just like any other. Palestinians & Arab fanatics. Israel something like a self-established concentration camp that its enemies might turn into an extermination camp. Their limited exterritorial autonomy traditions ignored on both sides rather than revived and fully developed. The myth of the chosen people. - 15. X. 1949: "but".
II/65 Handwriting & Biro pens. Currency taken abroad by tourists, exports, imports, notes find their way back to pay for English exports. Gold prices, drawn from Diocletian's price edicts, compiled by Prof. Lexis, were not so different from those of 19th century in Italy. Louise Saxe Eby, deceased. Her death foreseen in a dream? Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity, a religion which plunged the world into bloodshed for more than 1000 years, introduced by Constantine because it was a religion for slaves. Other forms of Christianity not so slavish, e.g. Cromwell's, that of Haiti, Torquemada, but philosophy must reject them all. Vodoo (Vaudoux) has not only a male but also a female pope
II/66 Some independence spirit remains in Haiti. What is a little cannibalism compared with the atrocities of whites in their wars? Christ no slave nature, prepared a tax strike against temple tax. He also had political aims. Rebellion in Ukraine. All without a sound finance plan likely to fail. Dr. Holzhauer's plan for an insurrectionist army. Nazis did not notice this intention. Identity with Greene's proposal. Alas, it can be abused by any invading army, as Japanese Imperial forces did in China. Is the complete manuscript preserved, with an appendix on his revolutionary intentions? B.'s manuscript on the same subject destroyed by an air raid. If the Allies had concentrated on destroying only military targets then the Nazi regime and all other dictatorships might have been overthrown long ago. Kassube payment traditions in Eastern Pommerania. Clearing transactions from memory only.
II/67 Nietzsche. The true Supermen would possess the following characteristics … A new Magna Charta to be compiled, read, discussed, understood and signed. Nietzsche offered no program.
II/68 No program, not even curiosity over absurd restrictive practices for imports and exports. Even Meulen, a supposed Free Trader, over many of these letters, accepted popular prejudices and bureaucratic commands as if they were laws of nature or rationalised in their favour, assuming that they would be sensible. Edgar Milhaud suggested the monetary freedom alternative for Free Trade: International clearing certificates. Another subject not discussed by M.P.'s, another important information not dug up by the secret services. King-Hall on technology and the "art of living". (Is living an art form without all economic liberties, especially the monetary ones? - J.Z., 8.6.03.) Payment technique was better in the Middle Ages. Specimens in Cantor's History of Mathematics. Medieval merchants forced to pay cash only when clearing was impossible. Medieval self-liberation of serfs
II/69 Crossbows effective against knights & robber barons. Beginnings of free towns and Hansa? Compare Robin Hood legend. Small modern example of ignoring forest authority in Northern Berlin. Wage slavery, employer-employee & union mentality. Proudhon's mutual bank project. Greene's Mutual Banking. B. never got around to translate them. Error of Proudhon: To treat mortgages like present goods. The exchange of goods separated by time must be done by credit instruments for which interest is unavoidable. The bank cannot simply mortgage a block of land by handing its notes to the proprietor. (And yet this primitive mistake is made again and again! - J.Z., 8.6.03.)
II/70 17. & 18. X. 1949: Voltaire on governments, non-thinking of collective responsibility, retaliatory atrocities, B.'s finances, goodness of anarchists, Zola's Germinal, B. an abstainer, his frugality, like Spinoza largely living on oats. The invention of shares multiplied the incomes of proletarians in the 19th century but only dividends are reported in the papers. How philosopher Thales gained riches and respect among ancient Greeks. Good Jewish habits, value of obeying Talmud rules
II/71 Dr. Gerson. Christianity. B. unemployed but busy, & reading Meulen, Tucker & Montaigne daily. J. M. Robertson, Pagan Christ. Christian ethics? There are several, all to be rejected, but not in toto. Jesuits, Probabilismus. Paganism. Rousseau, Gracián, Eby, Aquino, Lange's history of materialism. We know little about Christ's ethics, probably two kinds, one for his apostles and different prescriptions for other people. Heine.
II/72 The real ethics of Christ has not much in common with today's Christianity. Apostle Peter kept a private life.
Unification of armed forces, by Alexander the Great, Ghengis Khan, Napoleon & Hitler. Kant on the revolutionary beginnings of a just, free and peaceful society
II/73 A power must be created to prevent wars. (Not necessarily a State, although Kant was still a republican, a cosmopolitan one. He favoured human rights and militias - but was not free to express his view on such subjects. - 8.6.03.) Kong Fu Tse (Confucius) on King Wen, his winning without fighting, enemy soldiers obeyed rather him than their rulers. Wilhelm on comparing Confucius' ideas with those of Kant. Metaphysics, Buddha, Proudhon. India: Peace-loving and disobedient Buddhists exterminated. 80 000 works about Buddhism destroyed during their persecution. Buddhists never burned books. Buddha's tolerance. Probably no one can read more than 20 000 books.
There is probably more sense in this letter exchange than in all the holy books and religious commentaries.
II/74 Alas, people like Buddha &Christ did not write. Confucius wrote. Thus we have an ethics by him. But Buddhism and Christianity contain quite heterogeneous elements. Crusades, Christian warriors, Cromwell's Ironsides, Prussian soldiers of 1813. Mortifications, monasteries, cloisters. A separate Christian ethic does not exist. Kantian ethics, moral appeal of French Revolution to other peoples, pleasure principle. Spencer, Bentley. Adam Smith: "Theory of Moral Sentiments", Schiller in his "Wallenstein"
II/75 Some duty and honour notions and practices even among high-ranking thieves. Treason, duty. Sometimes only disobedience is dutiful. Man only 80 % a rascal, not 100 %. Coal mining productivity, English and French workers compared. Report by Thomas Brassey, M.P., "On Work & Wages". Trade union mentality, employer-employee relationship, H. Dubreuil: "A Chance for Everybody", describes it as "organised antagonism". Coalmines get deeper & more expensive. Effect upon their nationalisation. English payments, wheat imports from many countries
II/76 21. X. 1949: Milhaud bonds. Monetary legislation insufficiently published & known. Gold coin redemptionism. Taxation of trade in gold. Air mail restrictions, postal monopoly, communist censorship. In spite of all threats, the communist candidates got less votes than there were card-carrying members of the C.P. in West Berlin. Obviously, some took out membership only as a life-insurance. Schopenhauer's English education.
II/77 Malthusianism, fruitless opinion exchanges even between friends: Encyclopaedia of the Best Refutations required, online & on CD-ROM. - 21. X. 1949: Devaluation. Goethe on the battle of Valmy & the development of history. Exports, sell-outs or "sales" to get urgently needed cash. Connection between false exchange rate and note-printing
II/78 Devaluation, Prof. Wageman on history of devaluations: After about 2 years the previous gold prices are restored. However, it also leads to a corresponding paper money inflation. Marx on relationship between costs of gold production and other prices. Jevons on labour value of goods and just distribution
II/79 Some Berlin prices before & after devaluation. - 22. X. 1949: Jewish intermarriages in Berlin, 1946/47. 21. X. 1949: Scanning, truths & slogans
II/80 Slogans for connecting Free Banking with Scottish nationalist aims, clearing a Scottish invention, according to Jevons. (Rather: re-invention. - J.Z.) A short economic program for Scotland. - 23. X. 1949: Scotch self-help
II/81 Justice in the workplace, capitalism, State capitalism, concentration camps, moral force of socialism 100 years ago, cooperative or voluntary socialism. Owen, Buchez, Lasalle. Failure to adapt or invent financial and monetary systems to their aims. Monetary despotism of Israel. Not a single Jew protested, not even Zander. Open coops of Hertzka. Mentality of workers does not tend towards self-help. Astrology. Lack of program to change (or liberate! - J.Z.) the "capitalist" system. Inflation effect on mentality, war adopted as "solution" by governments for their problems.
II/82 Programs needed. All could be easily offered on alternative media like microfiche, floppy disks & CD-ROMs & via e-mail and websites. But the former 3 options remain neglected. Likewise an Ideas Archive for libertarian ideas and a libertarian encyclopaedia. 23. X. 1949: Value of devaluated West-mark: 5 old gold pence. - 24. X. 1949: Declaring "war" towards State capitalism.
II/83 Private capitalistic government (a contradiction in terms - J.Z., 8.6.03) seated in London is 100 times better for Scotland than a State-capitalistic government seated in Edinburgh. Compare situation of Baltic countries under Tsars with their "autonomy" under the Soviets. Separatism must be combined with individual liberties. Any form is acceptable if voluntary & confined to exterritorial autonomy. (In his letters B. did not always express all of his views together. Who can? - J.Z., 8.6.03.) Gregory King, Population of England, 1688: 5. 5 millions.
II/84 Relation of food producers to food consumers in England of 1688. - 27. X. 1949: B. heard about "Liberty" first around 1900, but could not afford it. Now he got his first issue of it. Tucker, the unique. German post
II/85 F. D. Tandy: "Voluntary Co-operation", consumer coops in England. Salaries of coop managers. Queen Christina of Sweden ending the 30-year war by her intervention in 1648. Dutch & Prussian governments rather paid officers salaries than letting them plunder - and got better officers this way. 100 years ago shopkeepers were less respected than coop managers. Experience & practices of retailers. Factory coops & their advantages, 4 points
II/86 Tucker's sharp pen, but treated Yarros badly. Morgenstern's poems & popularity in Germany. Anarchist Letter Writing corps. (I would prefer an anarchist CD-ROM publishing corps. - J.Z., 8.6.03.) Internoscia's "New Code of International Law". - 28. X. 1949:
II/87 Suggestion of a book on devaluation and comments from the point of view of Free Banking. Not only Hansards, edited and printed, but unabbreviated & unedited records on a website, with MPs and ministers adding their comments. More important: Freedom for citizens to add theirs. Web publishing of all comments and corrections. Parliamentary waffling and deceptions, false pretences, outright lies could be brought to an end. Spencer's suggestion on fully recording intentions, acts and results of all law & reasons for their repeal. Voice stress analysers etc. to be applied to all their public utterances and the results to be published, continuously, almost immediately after they occurred. A referendum to restrict the power of legislators. 10 points. Add your wish list.
II/88 Theory of Sir Stafford Cripps & his opponents comparable to old astronomical epicycles, much more complicated than the plain system of Copernicus. Newton on the Ptolemaic system. Simplicity & "Occam's Razor".
Tucker & Greene system introduced new principles. The personal monetary rights involved & ignored or suppressed by our rulers. Every imposed restriction of economic freedom produces more harm than good to the community, is tyrannical & entitles resistance. Popular perceptions of capitalism. Ayn Rand: Capitalism the Unknown Ideal. Even she did not consistently apply capitalist ideas to employees as capitalists, to money and to competing governments and societies.
II/89 B. used often predominant German and anti-capitalist meaning of the term "capitalism" but also offered his own and improved definition of it: a condition that inevitably results when most people do not bother to take care of all their economic affairs but leave them to politicians, bureaucrats, "experts" and employers and financiers. He was a voluntary and cooperative socialist and as such also a very radical free marketeer, favouring even competing governments and societies, not only full monetary & financial freedom, and more anarcho-capitalistic than are most of those who favour that term. Individual choice and self-help in every sphere. (Well, he had some excuses for conscription and compulsory schooling in some situations. - J.Z., 7.6.03.) Effect of monetary freedom upon Dollar scarcity, imports, exports, food supply. Prices of coffee and tea under import restrictions.
II/90 Wagemann on 2 year effect of devaluations, low profit margins in wholesale international trade, e.g. in wheat.
Land value taxes & inflation, Henry George. Mortgages and old age security. - 28. X. 1949: Coal mines - at their end in England, according to Rittershausen
II/91 In Germany coal miners paid by their output. Wheat suppliers in the world. US not decisive for wheat supply to UK. Purchase of wheat from many countries with means of payment based on the "acceptance principle" or "Milhaud-bonds", will achieve abundant supplies. With them the "Dollar scarcity" would disappear. The foreign exchange monopoly of the Bank of England would have disappeared, too. Shortage of eaters - or buyers, rather than shortage of food.
II/92 French North Africa & its development: The problem remains: How to sell the additional grain? A gold-valued Milhaud Bond would find its way through all the barriers. Bevan on devaluation. Roberspierre & Mirabeau. Article Optimum population in Encyclopaedia Britannic is worth reading. - 29. X. 1949: Christians on on-resistance. How many have seriously acknowledged that principle? Even those, who took it serious, were boycotted by other Christians. Nietzsche
II/93 Christ, Hume & Kant. Christ on justice system, revenge, avoiding courts, settling with opponents. Falsification of the scriptures. Christ never offered the other cheek but protested with courage, cleaning of the temple. We have only corrupted fragments of his ethics, not sufficient to restore Christ's real teachings. In 100 years Free Banking will be acknowledged as a religion. Christ attacked the Banks at the temple, because they are not founded on the Free Banking principle - a real sin in such a holy milieu. (Elsewhere he defended the money-changers there as a necessity for pilgrims, to change the local currency, they had brought with them, into the currency acceptable to the Temple and in Jerusalem. - J.Z., 7.6.03.) - 30. X. 1949: There are several Scotch independence movements
II/94 Cosmopolitan Union of Werner Ackermann, British Commonwealth as a beginning of that international power which Kant expected to come? Nobody tackled the problem of how to avoid civil wars. (Especially here he should have pointed out that the Individual Secessionists, Panarchists and Exterritorial Autonomy advocates did. - J.Z. 9.9.03) Kant expected nature to establish such an organisation. English policy towards India & South Africa, "independence". China was prevented from becoming a voluntary and true member of the Commonwealth. Scotch "independence" might begin with a new Scottish central bank and then proceed towards other despotic acts, e.g. protectionist ones and foreign exchange controls. The old Soviet system of trade might be introduced. Most of the word would applaud. But if that were reasonable then it would also be so between London & Dover. (And, ultimately, even between individuals. - J.Z., 8.6.03.) Zoning system. To milked oxen yield no more milk than one.
Export-import problem from that standpoint. The nonsense of frontiers. The world as one market
II/95 Goethe on women, their judgements & opinions. Germany without the intervention of Queen Christina daughter of Gustav Adolf. English traveller in France, paying in paper pounds. Cobden, Spencer, Jevons, Smith vs. Keynes, Cripps et al. The mentality of modern statist leaders. Schacht & the export spleen. Even the Soviets largely abandoned that system. Rittershausen: The old economic aristocracy is extinct. The employee mentality prevails among our rulers. They should not govern by obey and be guided. Maybe a new race of real merchants will need centuries to arise.
II/96 Schacht. Modern textbooks on economics. Very rare are those which see a connection between inflation and legal tender and the issue monopoly. Foreign exchange spleens. Just let all people deal freely. (Then even the fools would finally do the right thing, even if they do not comprehend why it works. - J.Z., 8.6.03.) Redemptionism, clearing, shop-foundation insufficient for "Internet-money" or "electronic money". (There is not obligation or special interest for local shops to accept such "money" of third parties. International money should rather gradually develop from local private and coop payment and value standard reckoning communities. - J.Z., 8.6.03.) Foreign exchange controls also for Milhaud-Bills? (Less likely, once they are introduced. - J.Z.) Powers behind the scenes. "Experts". Trade deficits
II/97 Balance of trade fallacies and delusions, flaws in trade statistics leading to faulty trade policies. Inflation experience. Hamburg importer Schlubach. German Great Inflation experience might have led to foreign exchange control attempts. (The alternative: Internally no legal tender & externally free exchange rates. But legislators rather enact popular errors, prejudices and false ideas. - J.Z., 8.6.03.)
II/98 Commercial statistics? Statistics by bureaucrats on deals for which the merchants have a tax avoidance interest in concealing the truth and the bureaucrats no knowledge? Who is the debtor of the negative balance in English trade? Honesty of Circassian customs officials in Tsarist Russia. So the "honest" Circassians helped the Russian govt. in its robberies, while the dishonest Russian official resisted them - well, to their own advantage, too. Chinese emperors entrusted customs rather to some Englishmen than some Chinese. England's balance of trade is active or balanced. Present system of payment tends to bring trade to a standstill. No one should have to depend upon a monopoly bank. Only under the present system can Malthus seem to be in the right.
II/99 Great Britain grown into a single town. Free Banking applied to Africa & South Africa. Daily growth of Soviet Army. Free Banking in England could provide conditions there which would make military defence largely unnecessary. Soldiers and officers would rather desert or rise against their rulers than attack England. And all of them could be welcomed and fully employed in England. The morale of the Red Army could be almost totally destroyed and the Soviet regime would not have dared to send their temporarily still loyal units as an occupation force to England. It is not impossible or difficult to offer all dictators and officers of oppressive regimes a better deal than they get from their rulers. Our rulers are not good enough businessmen to make them such offers. They still consider immigrants, refugees and deserters as a problem rather than as a benefit and a solution to their foreign policy problems. Logic and probabilities
II/100 Commercial body of Jevons of payment community of Mutual Bank or old Scottish Bank. - 4. XI. 1949: Malthusianism. Revolutionaries like Rousseau, Marx, Henry George and Prince Kropotkin did not conceive the ideas of emancipating mankind from the money monopoly. German legislation very repressive in this respect. Similar laws now in all countries uphold their central bank's payment monopoly. The breaking of this monopoly would be bloodless and of greater consequence than most other "revolutionary" steps. Monetary conditions of society influence all relations of man to man, of man to the State, of man to the means of production of man to the social product and its just distribution. Marx, at 27 demanded the present system in the first edition of the Communist Manifesto - as a good start for Communism. That was 1847. Marx was right in this.
II/101 None of the problems investigated by Malthusians have anything to do with an asserted greater increase of the population than of his means of subsistence. Struggle of life, cannibalism, Darwin. Robbers had other motives than hunger. Hunting period of man. Even with antique tools one agricultural labourer can sustain about 9 persons.
No record in world history that men died of hunger or had to suffer from it merely because their number was too great, except cases where the community did not enjoy free trade or where the government or ruling classes restrained production or free exchange. If Earth belonged to one person and there were only two other people and this owner of the world would be unwilling or too stupid to employ the other two then the world would seem terribly overpopulated to these two. Prof. Edwin Cannan advanced the "Optimum population" theory, adopted by more progressive Malthusians like Warren S. Thompson, et al.
II/102 When Malthus published his book G.B. was inhabited by less than 10 million people and Malthus "explained" their misery and hunger by "overpopulation"! Until 1815 the English govt. granted a bounty for the export of wheat just to get rid of the surplus wheat. At the time of Defoe the govt. tried to get the surplus turned into gin. At the time of Malthus & still today many more people in England die from over-eating than from hunger. Hunger? Food must be bought before it is eaten and not men buy but their means of payment buy food and people go hungry because they lack means of payment and means of payment may not be competitively offered to them for their labour, goods and services. A good money system includes absence of foreign exchange controls. Fear of devaluation plays a role in the food supply. Freedom for diverse forms of paying for imports.
II/103 Under Free Banking any country will always seem underpopulated … as long as queues are not seen before bakeriers. Now it is difficult for labour to obtain credit or purchasing power. Then it will be difficult for purchasing power to find labour. (The higher returns for labour will perform the required balancing act. - J.Z., 9.3.03.) Malthusianism, Lord John Boyd Orr, increase in arable land and yields, erosion. Overproduction? Combined with under-consumption! Not enough eaters? Not enough buyers! Henry Hamilton's History of the Homeland
II/104 5. XI. 1949: Overseas tourist spending = no returns to the home country? Import, export. B. in Switzerland in 1926. Schiller on price control, case of Antwerp under siege. What if … history.
II/105 Cannan & Carr-Saunders on Malthusianism, Malthusianism is a religion & who did ever refute a religion? Schopenhauer on the children of real love & Turgenev: "The New Generation", women, love and note issue. Wolzogen & rarity of real love. Louise Saxe Eby & the fate of man - en men like B. Two kinds of economists
II/106 Military side of the population question, maximum of population, rulers abusing populations for armies of conquests. Hohenstauffen empire united with England & secure against the United Russia-China-Indian millions. Heavens & the Soviets, interest in such questions in the West. Human tigers, with the intelligence of beasts of prey. Until now man was nothing but a blunder of nature! 11. 11. 49: Collective responsibility, SPD meeting on denazification experience. There are Nazis & Nazis. Sometimes all members of a factory of office were collectively signed up as members of the NSDAP, without even having been asked. Nuremberg principles. Duty to disobey
II/107 Collective responsibility. Responsibility for guilty actions not for mere formal membership. Tucker, Machiavelli & aggression. Kant disapproved of preventive war. B. did not follow him there. US militia should have destroyed the Soviet atomic bomb factories, provided the technical possibility had existed. Atomic bombs in the hands of the US govt. are morally hardly better, although less likely to be used, again. Totalitarianism of ABC mass murder devices & their collective responsibility assumption. Votes or arguments against State-capitalism (State-socialism)? Unemployment in UK & in Russia. Votes no measure for responsibility. Recall
II/108 Recall, majority, people, collective responsibility & exterritorial communities of volunteers, individual & minority group secessions. Voters for Hitler & their guilt: Example of individualist anarchist Dr. Walther, who thought Hitler would soon make himself ridiculous & thus unintentionally promote anarchism! Falsified votes - happen even in democracies. Nazi & Communist "free & honest voting", Pearl Habour attack invitation and Sep. 11 01 terrorist attack. Governments prepared for any crime to retain & gain power. War against a country not the best way to deprive its despotic govt. of its power, although sometimes such intervention may be justified. But not when all other approaches haven't been tried and proven in vain. US govt. & quite just war & peace aims, e.g. regarding oil in Iraq. One Hitler was in power those who before had voted for him & now would have voted against him, after experiencing his regime, were not given the chance.
II/109 English & French govts. & others negotiated with Hitler as an equal. By 1933 Belgium or Austria alone could have restored liberty in Germany. Sometimes military intervention is justified. German army leaders allied with Hitler, for their own objectives. League of Nations to rule Germany? Decentralisation of Germany into small States. Spencer's Ignoring the State right applied to soldiers in 1919 or perhaps even in 1938, applied to German soldiers. Soviets might have followed Mao's example in this. Disinterest of ministers, MPs, editors, workers and managers in such questions. Talks of B. on desertion option with German officers. A new kind of pacifism. View of English prisoners & Follin. POW treatment & reaction of prisoners to it. Wolfgang Seher case.
II/110 Kremlin with atomic bombs. Bribery with gold coins, to those delivering such bombs to a secure place?
12.11.1949: Communist Anarchism in England & Berlin, 1958 Berlin Discussion Centre. Only individualist anarchists really scarce. Freedom of expression in England, Kant & "liberty of the pen", better than all institutions in the long run. Even good institutions become obsolete & have to be replaced. Secret trials, later abused against heretics & witches but not bad initially. (Vhemic courts against men in power & abusing it.) Duke of Bedford, Major Douglas, Social Credit. Good, realistic and original socialistic ideas, in Tucker's sense, do not originate among people who would mostliy benefit from them. Most famous socialist thinkers were not proletarians: Marx, Lassalle, Lenin, Trotzky, Stalin, Proudhon. Anti-Slavery movement, too, had only one slave as Champion: Toussaint-l'Ouverture. He confirmed the old rule by slave-masters: Never teach a slave to read & write! But he may also have been of royal African descent. Tolstoy & other aristocrats ceded their estates to the peasants.
II/111 That was at last outlawed. (And peasants were not informed & organised for their purchase options. - J.Z., 9.10.03.) The greatest enemies of any regime arte at its court. Probably true for Kremlin, too. Stalin, Tucker, Nikolaus I & Robert Owen. John Henry Mackay's "Die Anarchisten". B. visited Mackay ca. 1929, when he was poverty-stricken & had to sell his library to Moscow. (Typically, there was no buyer in the West. In Moscow it was long buried. What could be done now with this library there, with photocopiers, scanners and CD-ROMs? Who cares? I conditionally offer A $ 500 for such an effort. I would accept titles scanned from there, too, not only photocopies. A new kind of activism is needed, one that would really count, in the long run. - J.Z., 9.6.03. Young B. often talking with Communist Anarchists. Example of Eskimos, Tsar Nikolaus II & the Grand Duke Konstantin. Would the latter change their nature? A powerful organisation against them is required. That's what Individualist Anarchism demands. Referral to experience in the armed forces - and man's nature or the nature of some men.
Follin against thinking in general terms. Christ.
II/112 Churches, 4 Evangiles unreliable & not fit as a basis for a religion. But some aspects of Christs life appear believable. Koran written on paper 30 years ofter Mohammed's death, according to Gibbon. Before only on shoulder blades of sheep, by Mohammed's secretary, who misunderstood M. so much, that M. firmly declined the authorship of these writings and even expressed the wish that any of his friends might kill the secrtary. But he did not destroy this falsified record and it was rediscovered and turned into another holy book, the foundation for several religions. Amusingly represented in Volney's "Les ruins". Some religions only seem to be founded on books but weren't really, because most people could not read & were thus ignorant of the contents of the Holy Books. They were merely guided or misled by ceremonies & ritual & some stories. Cooperation vs. State Socialism. Coop Wholesale Society not a coop itself. Work done by employees. Nothing in common with productive coops. Latin & Greek. Old error that the State is a great coop. Individualist Anarchists and facts in Russia and its Satellites impressively refuted this old error. Free Banking & separatist or secessionist movements.
II/113 Rittershausen article on devaluation. Not to consider it as a matter of right and wrong is the worst. 18. 11. 1949: Communist Anarchists, Aldred, asking: 100 000 unemployed in this town: Can your system find work for them within a year? And if not, what laws etc. prevent this? Which laws etc. must be repealed to make this technically & economically possible? 18. 11. 1949:
II/114 Guy A. Aldred, Strickland Press, and "The Word", wants 300 Pounds. How he might be able to raise such a credit by the issue of his own "tickets". History of English Tradesmen's Tokens. 150 Years ago quite normal. (Alas, mostly only in small denominations, for small change! - J.Z., 9.6.03.) Warner's article in "Sound Currency". Distrust effect upon the use of the tickets. A's readiness to accept them. But not for long-term loans. For these another procedures is required and here described.
II/115 Guy A. Aldred, suggested long-term-loan certificates to be issued & redeemed by him over a period. Additional readiness-to-accept potential that Aldred might have mobilised for his "ticket-money". Expansion of the scheme.
II/116 All kinds of local service providers combining for the issue of their local currency. Ticket money for all performances (sales of labour, services and goods). That's the ticket! 19. XI. 1949: Devaluation, long-term loans simply by issuing notes? Greene report on North Carolina State notes at par, although tax foundation was small. European experience reported by Lorenz von Stein. How exclusive or competitive was the North Carolina paper money?
II/117 Banker's ability to grant long-term loans with the own notes is very restricted. Trust, distrust. Cours forcé: the basis of all social & economic evils. (Well, not of all but of many and very large ones! - J.Z., 9.6.03.) English writing difficulties for B. - and for myself with my PEACE PLANS efforts. Is "banking" still the optimal terms to refer to the note-issuing option? Rittershausen. His students require long explanations for "banking-principle" and "currency principle. They are unable to think that others than govt. officials could also issue paper money.
II/118 Old German banking rule: Outstanding notes equal to the bank's current income, so that the public can use the notes as a means of payment against the bank. A distrust, leading to a discount of the bank's notes elsewhere, will simply speed up their return to the bank for acceptance there at par. Thus the bank's short term loans will be repaid even faster. New short-term loans, with new short-term notes become possible. Disadvantage to issuer of his carelessness if he over-issued - and found careless acceptors for his over-issues. Notes ought to be as a rule "as good as gold". Brand recognition and reputation do matter for them, too. Issuers will not want to lose their good name or issue at a large discount and have to accept these notes shortly after at par from anyone. What would promises of politicians be worth - if issued as their own service vouchers, not backed by tax robberies or supported by legal tender and if competitive services could be freely offered? Money of competing insurance and other services. First such issues might multiply. Then they would consolidate towards few local issuers, perhaps even upon a single local currency. But certainly not towards a single national one, although nationally or even internationally, a single value standard might be adopted by almost all. 20. 11. 1949: Purely technical improvements & social progress, insofar as this progress means the spread of progressive ideas. Alternative media and stagnancy & apathy even of libertarian minds towards them. Gold bugs stuck to gold redemptionism, libertarians to paper, e-mail & websites, even without making a proper free market survey for all their publishing and reading options. Technical improvements in banking & their contributions to economic & political freedom in England & Scotland. ( I would welcome your shorter summaries! - J.Z., 9.6.03.)
II/119 If monks would have brought paper instead of silk worms from China - and with it paper money … Option clause as significant technical improvement, boy Potter & his valve gear for steam engines, economic crises, State as God, use of reformed option clauses. Greene & Tucker & their followers demonstrated that the mere delay can be extended at libitum, i.e. replaced by the refusal to make good notes in other ways than by accepting them at par. Cheque business exhibited the general nature of the danger against which option clauses, in their original form, should but could not protect bankers. Probabilities of luck and unlucky chances. Stephen Peral Andrews failed to generalise small cases. Panics. Honesty in ticket promises. Variety of clauses, fit for every occasion would be advisable. Fraud cases.
II/120 Time delay clauses. Time & quality promised should not be dependent upon lucky chances. Honest & dishonest promises and "the" gold standard. Rittershausen: Not the gold standard failed but the bankers to whom it was entrusted. Some German bankers never forgave him such remarks. Supply and use or abuse of value standards & supply of exchange media. No centralistic and monopolistic supplier can ever supply them sufficiently and evenly for a whole country. Paper standards systematically depreciated by those to whom they were entrusted. And these criminals were and are highly praised and rewarded. The sanction of the "sheple". Fundamental biogenetic law, discovered before Haeckel - has a much wider application. No sphere of human activity is quite exempt from it. It also applies to banking. Free Banking, to be revived, must begin with the issue of tickets by merchants. Then merchants might establish issuing departments and finally combine towards a local bank of issue. That development migth take considerable time.
II/121 Can it be greatly speeded up? Different option clauses in the future, scientifically framed. Never more should be promised than can be delivered. No "lack of trust" excuses to be accepted for taking unnecessary risks. Nietzsche: Honesty is the youngest of virtues. Dishonesty among even the best people in old times, in all professions. Machiavelli advised princes to always keep their promises. Dishonesty of the generally adopted principle of banking in the past: fractional reserve banking. Honesty can't be replace by piety or divine miracles or belief in them. Goethe & errors in science, perpetuated as truths. 21. 11. 1949: Aldred, revolutionary movements & their leadership, French Revolution, Carlyle. Bakunin's lack of a sound program for the Paris Commune. Kropotkin also flawed in "La Conquête du pain".
II/ 122 Alexander Herzen, Tucker's kind of socialism, liberation of serfs under Alexander II, Prussian 1807 liberation laws, Rothchild. Malvide von Meysenbug. At least Bakunin & Kropotkin were not statists. Jews, Germans & Nazis as businessmen. Hitler, Alexander the Great, Caesar & Napoleon III powerful as debtors. Hitler regime cared for details needed to preserve it in power. Marx, dissertation on "the Jew Queston", against the popular prejudice that Jews are "masters of money". Here and only here did he suggest the destruction of the money monopoly as a solution. Otherwise and quite generally, he wanted to maximise it. Quite consistently, if power for himself and his supporters was his true aim. B. suggested to Z. to call the Four Bills System "the Jewish system of providing money". That might have gained the support of the Jews in the world.
II/123 "Antisemitism is the socialism of fools". - Sombart. Pogroms & "Christianity". Hitler's speeches on the radio. Mankind like a prehistoric monster to be exterminated? English impartiality. Malthusianism. Cannan as B.'s predecessor on "population optimum". Warren S. Thompson, "Plenty of People", 1944, contains valuable military considerations about Malthusianism. 22. XI. 1949: Aldred. Age & changing one's views. 1906 (?) Questionnaire of "Temps Nouveau" at Paris, to all trade unions: Cash shortage in social revolution. What is to be done?
II/124 These questions set B., then 24, on his life-long path, exploring and explaining monetary freedom options. Aldred. (Who can supply that Q.? And the answers then offered? - J.Z., 9.6.03.) Significance of the anwers for the success of all social revolutions. State paper money & Jacobinism or Assignats-dirigism. Bakunin, Marx, Kropotkin etc. provided no hints, did not even see the problem. Tucker found at least some hints but did not think out a program on how to finance a revolution. Or did not publish it. B. wrote one but it was destroyed by an air raid, with his library. Otherwise, a book with such a title might have become a bestseller in some countries, even if only underground. Party membership, now and in the Athens of Solon. Taking sides. B. joined the Independent Socialist Party in 1918 which later united with the SPD & stayed with it for over 50 years but finally resigned in disgust. Territorialism of all parties makes them part of the problem rather than the solution. They could peacefully coexist and advances under the exterritorial imperative. However, when mass murder becomes a popular "sport" then sometimes even brutal repression of it is justified. Only in the long run could panarchies prevent most such slaughters. Rwanda, Muslims & Hindus. Ackermann, Follin.
II/125 World Government & World Federation. Misgovernment by them means no improvement - & could lead to worse repression and bloody civil wars. Banking & note issuing in the minds of average men. Aldred an M.P.? They never have the time to enter into details of any social reform. Anyhow, parliamentarians find certain views simply ridiculous. Indians & Muslims. Hindu "miseries" include cow killings by others. Mogul States ruled the Hindus better than the Brahmans did. They had religious freedom, except for the burning of alive widows. Mohammedan tolerance. A wonderful invention of Mohammed: You want to keep your religion? Well - that costs you a gold coin a year. Thus the financial interest of rulers was combined with religious tolerance. 23. 11. 1949:
II/126 Robertson: Pagan Christs. Volney, Dupuis & Bastian writings. Abundance of atheist literature - with all too little effects so far. Juvenile delinquency low among orthodox Jews & Chinese. So there is at least something good about their religions. Science, philosophy & religion. Religion of religious reformers. Benjamin Franklin & slavery.
II/127 French Catholicism changed after the French Revolution, Church vs. Religion, Jesuits investigating evolution. Forms remains, contents changed. We know little of the real religion of old reformers. 24. 11. 1949: Cruxifixion interpreted as a human sacrifice to God. Homer: Some of his stories probably true
II/128 Cruxifixion, Jesus' last words, Gibbon on Christians & heathens and readiness to die for one's religion. Nazis and Inquisition produced even more victims than Nero & his successors. Priests like bureaucrats ready to chane their religion to keep their jobs. Pagan elements in Christianity. Impossible to find out all the original teachings.
26. 11. 1949: Letter to "Times" on M's letter re money monopoly and on monetary alternative.
II/129 Money certificates or banknotes on the acceptance principle - free issue of notes without cours forcé.
26. 11. 1949: UK & Bank of England note circulation then. Would Free Banking increase the total circulation? Up to what limit?
II/130 27. 11. 1949: Berlin food supply good enough to slimming pills to be sold. Prof. Walter Spahr on free gold market. A statist, who does not recognized monetary rights. Etatism says: What? buying & selling? They are not for subjects like you. - (Later, I believe, Spahr became a dogmatic gold-bug & gold redemptionist. - J.Z., 9.6.03.) The later Fichte went from advocating price control to a totalitarian State. If one does not start from monetary freedom principles and practices then one is driven in the direction of such conclusions.
II/130 10. 12. 1949: Turgenev's "Virgin Soil" ("Die neue Generation" or "Neuland"). Christianity and "visions". Origins of religions. Revivalism. B. in New York, 1910 & 1911. Evangiles, Mary of Magdala as "witness". Timing of the writing of the New Testament (evangiles) & destruction of Jerusalem
II/131 Free Thinkers, Constantin, State religion. Otherwise it would have disappeared like most other religions. Consider Christ, whatever little we know of him, apart from Chistianity. Superstitions of the times. Edgar Allan Poe. 12. 12. 1949: Aldred pamphlets received
II/133 Tea and coffee for B.'s addiction and intemperance in this respect. Political unity not the most important for Germany. Compare Dr. Fischbarcher's assertion, that a Bavarian, who marries a Prussian girl commits "Blutschande". (Sin against the bloodline! - J.Z.) B. a Federalist in the sense of Proudhon in his "Du principe fédératif". 20. 12. 1949: Radio noise from neighbours makes it impossible for B. to write.
II/134 Dismantlings, Soviet Army in the East of the Elbe. Defence. War may be caused by just one General, like the China/Japan war. Once it begins, the central govt. can't stop it. Rather let English & American workers produce ammunition in German ammunition factories. If Germany were occupied by the Soviets, its mentality might be changed like the Russian was by the Mongol invasions and occupation. King-Hall. Zander wrote excellent book on peace between Arabs and Israelis. Alas, nationalism always wins in similar situations. (? Did Zander consistently advocate panarchism? Not according to a long talk that I had with him. - J.Z., 9.8.03.) Long term fate of territorial Israel - if not bombed out of existence.
II/135 The once good reason for Israel, namely, to give Free Banking a chance, was not realised by Israel. It imitated all the monetary atrocities of the Western World. It has no more right to exist as a territorial State than any other territorial State. Zander, community and exterritorial autonomy for volunteer communities. S.W. Alexander & "City Press": A small group wants to restore old gold standard, with full gold convertibility of notes by the issuer, which would restore all the terrors of this "standard". Hegel: "history teaches nothing but that people do not learn anything from it." Worst new gold agitator now: Prof. Spahr. Schacht, not idea of Free Banking. He would "cover" his paper money with gold buried in Fort Knox, like the devil in Goethe's Faust did with gold treasures still to be found. If Malthus' contemporaries would have followed his advice, England, with little more than 10 million people, could tomorrow occupy England without full mobilisation of his forces. Nazis in Germany & England: Stupidity as a political force. The issues of "Liberty" belong to the most important events of the 19th century. One day the issues will be collected and form a new kind of Bible. (Just like a complete collection of Beckerath's letters could! - J.Z., 9.6.03.)
II/136 "Tagesspiegel", role in preventing the SPD joining the SED by giving minority of the SPD's internal anti-communist opposition a voice, although it was by no means an SPD paper, on the contrary. Boyd-Orr figures. How to sell victuals? Optimum population of the world, Prof. Cannan. Could all mankind be drowned in the Sea of Constance? How thick a film would mankind's biomass form if spread evenly over Earth's land surface? How thin would that film be with that of the combination of all other biomass? Lucas profit sharing. Flaws of such projects.
One alternative. Another: Factory savings banks.
II/137 Saving with one's factory could provide a better social insurance. (Later also the funds to take over a factory in a businesslike way. - J.Z., 9.6.03.) Aldred pamphlets. Such people have no program. That leads to Sovietism in times of revolution. Kropotkin, contrary to what B. stated here, did not join these bastards. However, his economics was as bad as theirs. Christianity dying? As foolish things do not die. Economics vs. Christianity. Proudhon.
Dandelion tea, Frederic II & his Dr. Zimmermann. Kant and coffee. Voltaire's coffee consumption. 21. 12. 1949:
II/138 Value by acceptance in external trade. At least it should not be prohibited. Complete liberty of trade is the right means to decide the question. Pound circulation 1926-1930, value of UK Pounds before the 1931 devaluation, expressed in ounces of fine gold, very much greater than in 1914. When circulation is excessive always something happens to reduce the amount to its "normal" value. The "normal" relation between gold and paper money is always stated by a really free market. There exists also a "normal" relation between the population and its needs for means of payment. First investigated by Petty. The normal relation is observed in normal times. (Are any times "normal" under an issue monopoly & monopoly value standard? - J.Z., 9.6.03.) State of the currency hidden by cours forcé. A part of this condition is also the control of prices, wages, rents etc. in terms of paper money. Without cours forcé inflation is technically impossible. That was self-evident for elder economists. Ricardo, in his famous Bullion Report, was the first economist who did not see that truth and thus arrived at nonsensical conclusions. But it was never quite forgotten. In 25 German States it was prohibited to created a paper money with cours forcé, as a principal means to prevent inflation. The author of the German Law, after 1870/71, was Michaelis. Rittershausen's exceptional stand against cours forcé.
II/139 Dollar shortage: Now Canada and UK agreed on pound payment for Canadian wheat. Unemployment and exports pressure under monetary despotism. Considering this, any government can get all world commodities for its own currency. The others must agree, for the unemployment menace overwhelms all contrary arguments.
Christianity discussion. Duke of Bedford. State should create its own means of payment and this without cours forcé. Correspondeing proposal in Four Law Drafts. If the State issues money for any other purpose or otherwise, then they do misuse this power and opportunity and then introduce the cour forcé, "the real root of all evils". Zander on railway money. War finance. Jehovah's Witnesses. 29. 11. 49: Pound-spending tourists. The principles involved in the smallest case are interesting. We agree completely that if the governments would free the foreign exchanges then our problem would not arise.
II/140 Rights of citizens regarding currency. None under statism. The decisions may come to be made by the greatest blockhead in office, rather than by a Socrates not in office. Trade with a currency always available and which will not be hoarded. Milhaud-Bonds are such a currency. Such bonds meet difficulties which remain even after foreign currencies are freed. Love and children. Christ himself a bastard but his mother could afford a good cover-up job. Machiavelli on aggression. UN army could become the most effective engine of tyranny ever. Fichte on individual secessions and voluntary associations, 1793. Tyrannicide in old Rom. Revival attempt in revolutionary France largely a failure. Schopenhour and love in generating worthy men.
II/141 Free Banking would also aid worthwhile marriages. Tyranny difficult when there is no exclusive currency. If the Tyrant does not have a note-printing press at his disposal and and not enough other incomes, then he must stop his tyranny. New religion will abhor fiat money (forced currency), like old Jews felt when swine entered their temple. Social Statics: Indeed, deserters might have to be watched but that is no problem. Example of Czech army joining Tsarist side against Imperial Austria. Atomic Bombs. Apparently, M. was in denial. Christianity & money reform of Constantine. Sesterzes and devaluation unde Caesars. Tibet still on an honest gold weight standard. Many of the subjects must have thought: His currency is good. Perhaps his religious is as good as well. The gold weight standard now everywhere else prohibited. German monetary revolution began 1922. By Nov. 1923 the Reichsbank and German govt. had to concede. Originally carried by middle classes but in October 1923 the workers began to revolt as well. Some leaders occupied factories and demanded "gold wages", i.e., wages paid in paper but fixed in gold value. Curious fact: Some years later all that was forgotten! Cooperative Wholesale Soc.
Russian artjel, not yet quite suppress by nominal Soviet coops. Serb artjels or work coops in road building. (For a while this practice was successfully revived in New Zealand. Maybe they would not quickly enough adopt or were unable to arrange finance for expensive road-making machinery. - J.Z., 9.6.03.)
II/142 Serbian coops. For Serbs coops are quite natural. Germans want a master or employer. B. said with Schopenhauer: "Time is the possibility of observing different qualities on the same object." Jews & races. Most living Jews, just like many Germans no longer real Jews and real Germans. Already the subjects of David were no longer a uniform race. The present German race was, especially in the 30 year war, propagated by Scots, Irish, Spaniards, Flemings, Gypsies, Swedes, Croats, Irish and also many Jews. But the new mixture was not worse than the old although not much better, either, as history has proven. Trust: Madame Roland: Distrust is the basis of liberty. She exaggerated but, on the whole, was right. Trust in the Comité du Salut Public cost many of the best French their lives. Both are so general terms to be useless without detailed examples. Four types of trust in the note-issuing business. Deplorable trust of many, where utmost distrust would have been justified, was the trust in Hitler's promises - of that of UK voters in promises of the Labour Party, etc. Labour Party, if it were only panarchistically active, in free competition with other parties, as exterritorially autonomous.
II/143 Territorialism gives the Hitlers etc. everywhere their best chance. Tucker Bank: short-term loans or option clauses (time staggered repayment bonds) corresponding to its long-term loans. Then distrust could do not harm.
23. 12. 1949: What would an Anarchist do if e.g. the Alberta Government introduced such a tyrannical and idiotic system as that of Douglas? Panarchism as a war aim, realized in Germany 1918 or 1945. Statelessness and rightful laws on foreigners. New jurisdiction: Gibbon described the ancient German tradition: choice of citizenship or legal union. Fichte on this. Such leagues, in 1918, would have been a considerable obstacle for Hitler. One ought to prepare for such situations.
II/144 Can one reach even anarchists and libertarians with such ideas? One should begin with recording all of them on affordable, lasting and efficient alternative media, like microfiche, floppies, CD-ROMs, DVDs. Superstitions on imports and exports. Employment-providing investments should be tax-free. Kapp Putsch failed largely because it did not get Reichsbank support. The whole plan was based on occupying and using its note-printing press. Havenstein's honourable role in this. Ramin's report. Ramin and Knapp were school mates. Political strength of government with a note printing press Advantage, for all, if the government is not tyranny. Disadvantage, for all its victims, if it is a tyranny and it has a note-printing press and cours forcé at its disposal. A good government can operate under Free Banking, competitively, based upon sound tax-foundation (if one can accept taxation as sound). A bad government can be overwhelmed by revolutionaries knowing how to finance themselves via Free Banking principles and practices.
II/145 24. 12. 1949: "Liberty" 10 issues received, greetings from the tomb of our unforgettable Tucker. Every country with a centralised government is a danger to wrold peace. Then only few people decide on war or peace and not the ones who do the fighting, bleeding, dying, starving, forced labour and paying all costs. Nor can centralised governments ever be reliable allies.
II/146 Repeal of monetary despotism the first presupposition for talking sensibly about peace. Fear of war great in Germany in 1939. Comparable to the departure of Hession troops , sold to the British government, for its war with the American "rebels". In all countries the true mentality of the people against WW III is hidden by the centralised form of govt. And this is interconnected with monetary despotism: Central Banking & its money issue monopoly. Hayek: Why the worst get on top. Territorialism, conscription, taxation, statism, compulsory schooling, government loans as some other factors. About 500 points on this subject are assembled in PP 16-17, now online:
www.panarchism.info/ & www.exterritorial.info/ Free Banking is just one practical aspect of exterritorial autonomy for volunteer communities. 25. 12. 1949: Refugee problem, in Germany & the world. One of the many problems created by teritorialism. Labour power of the refugees remaining unused.
II/147 We make better use even of water power. We even put refugees in concentration camps & deport all but those which are finally, sometimes after years of delays, accepted by our irresponsible bureaucrats. True reason or motive for denying basic rights to refugees: The unfounded belief that employment possibilities are limited. The limit is given by the quantity of means of payment available. That means, now, in practice, those of the Central Banks. The admission of other means of payment is assumed to be the greatest of all evils. A kernel of truth lies in this prejudice: If everyone could issue legal tender money a disaster would result. However, if everyone were only free to produce and offer optional and market rated money while all others remain free to refuse it, a great improvement would rapidly follow. Question of under-cutting or accepting lower wages.
II/148 Why labour offered by a waterfall is welcome and that offered by refugees is not. The former can be utilised by credit given and secured in the usual and well-known forms. To secure credit, given to employe refugees (and masses of unemployed - J.Z.) other forms are necessary, known only to those familiar with the note issues of Free Banking. Moral side of the refugee (& unemployment - J.Z.) problem: Indifference towards such problems. It is a kind of crime. Future religion on this. Clergymen's view of social reform attempts as distrust in God's affairs. Now we have statist individual irresponsibility and unwarranted trust in the new God, the State, instead. Kant on duty regarding social problems. The authority of the State to declare war is not a right but a usurpation. Nazi teachers asked children to denounce their parents. 100 years ago at least tax exemption would have been offered for capital used to employ refugees. Freedom from taxes would attract refugee capital from all over the world. No German paper dares publish anything very different from all what governments, professors, politicians etc. declared to be necessary. Prescribed money standard another obstacle. Industrialists even asked for another & sharper devaluation. Long-term capital is deterred rather than attracted. None of the refugees (or unemployed) ever cared about such problems and their solutions. Nor did bank managers, high officials, exporters and scholars. Thus public opinion remained unenlightened, too.
II/149 "Policies" against refugees (& unemployed! - J.Z.) Self-help remains outlawed. But terrorists always wecome recruits from such circles of victims. If free banking principles and practices for financing unemployed labour were better known, the economic problem of refugees would never have arisen. West Germany would have appealed to East Germans to come over and work in the West. Free Trade could have supplied them with more food than is really good for them. Free note issue could provide exactly the amount of means of payment needed to pay them for their productive labours. And inflation would be made impossible for cours forcé would no longer exist, nor the issue monopoly. A suggestion for story writers, novelists and film makers. Utilise the true stories the refugees have to offer. 26. 12. 1949: Free Banking Calendar? Goethe on calendars.
II/150 27. 12. 1949: Grotewohl: The top victimiser becoming a victim himself. B. had a little letter exchange with him in 1946. The weaknesses of totalitarianism are too little studied, as Kenneth de Courcy said. Asylum even for such people. More so for deserters. Offering them a neutral status. Mao was hugely successful with this approach. Kind Wen used it succesfully long ago. To be made long before the war & well published & practised. Every soldier & officer on the other side ust know it.
II/151 Isle of Man proposed as first station for Russian deserters. Temporary marriages to be permitted. Honesty & humanity need not be political or military impediments. They could become our best assets, rightly used. Precedent for Soviet rulers in the French Revolution. The English govt. will do nothing. Private associations should take the preparatory steps. 6. 1. 1950: A German "Individualist"? That had been B.'s ideal for about 50 years. By December 1932 he was nearly ready. But in January 1933 came the Nazis. (If only he would have had a printing press, or microfiche or floppy disks, CD-ROM, e-mail or websites at his disposal for a few of his active years and freedom to use them! - J.Z., 9.6.03.)
II/152 Concern for members of the royal families. Even such a mentality has some advantages. Better such talk than merely talk about daily household affairs etc. Parliamentary despotism is a greater obstacle to Free Banking than were Emperors, Dukes & Princes. Personal thinking prevails rather than causal thinking. Russian atomic bombs. But guards would sell them! Cooperation & piece work: No contradiction. Example of agrarian coops in Italy, between 1905 & 1914. Coop wages as advances on their shares in coop earnings. Workers & unions against piece work. But things change when the workers become self-employed. Then they favour rather than abolish piece work.
II/153 Coop worker: If I work faster I earn more or can go home earlier. An average employer would not let him go home. (Some local coal mines did, e.g., when I came to Berrima. These miners started about 7 a.m. and were finished by 11 a.m. and earned so much that even the bonus of an extra day's pay, if they did not take one "sickie" for 2 weeks, did not attract them, although they had already plenty of spare time. - J.Z. 9.6.03.) Advantage of coops for present employers. First title of Meulen's book: "Industrial Justice by Banking Reform" was excellent. Not merely a technical detail is involved but an essential question of right and wrong. Now people think only a contribution to the quantity theory is involved, proving that Free Banking can never produce an inflation. Runge seems to confound private note-issuing with free note-issuing. Free is here essentially also private, but private is not free, if it supposes a permit by the govt. 37 private banks existed in Germany, all chartered. Runge's false view of B.'s Free Banking writing in the Annals. German small States also suffered much in the matter of note issue from State control. These controls made the remaining note issue options unattractive. Their circulation remained small and most readily gave up. The 4 remaining ones were strangled by Schacht. Main impediment: Redemptionism, which was maliciously enforced by the Reichsbank. Even the conventional option clause would not have helped the Reichsbank's victims.
II/154 Denominations were too large. The same superstition existed in England. Adam Smith share the error involved. Roscher reports on this. Dissertation of Dr. T. Schumacher, in German on the development of German banknotes, full of important historical details and important theoretical distinctions. 8. 1. 1950: Rade differences do not justify differences in rights but they do exist. Tucholsky, his "Weltbuehne". He fled to Paris and starved. Ossietzky, editor, caught & murdered by Nazis. His widow now publishes under the same name a tedious Communist paper. Tucholsky really an anarchist.
II/155 Two anecdotes on supposed national differences. Zander's mission in India, to Muslims. Arabs, Israelis & wide-spread bribery. Djezzar Pascha. Sir William Sidney Smith defending Akka against Napoleon. A second great Arab leader like him might incorporate little Israel in a greater Arab-Syrian-Turkish commonwealth. 10. I. 1950: Nationalities & nationalism. Example of the Wends (Sorbs) among the Prussians.
II/156 Wendian nationalists pretended that they represented this minority group. So it is with the Indians. A small minority pretends to speak for India. Almost none of the Indian students talked about Indian independence. It was too far from their interests. Education among the Old Romans: They took young men to courts to listen to lawyers and judges.
II/157 That taught them something e.g about natural rights, a highly developed language & principles of justice. B. learned much for his profession from studying High Court decisions. Malthusianism. If new cheap food production methods are developed somewhere, then in other parts of the world some people lose their jobs and this country will then seem to be "overpopulated". Instance from Imperial Russia, Romania & Hungary. Stolypin send the "surplus" population to Siberia and gave them credits, so that they finally produced very cheap food even there. (B. instances cheap Siberian butt49 in Berlin - but I reserve some doubts until I get confirmation from others. What other products than timber, furs and ores did Siberia produce cheaply? - J.Z.) Any "overpopulation" produced by a surplus of food is very contrary to Malthusianism and yet was frequently observed. Instance: emigration from Eastern provinces of Germany, where food was cheap and plentiful. "Pressure of mouths"? Every man kept allive can produce in Africa victuals for at least 10 persons. What will be increased will be the "pressure" of victuals on "mouths". Souls, Chinese & David Hume.
II/158 Since Malthus's birth (1766) not one year where overpopulation caused hunger, although bad harvests did sometimes occur. But every year there were difficulties in selling victuals. But Malthusians do not care about facts.
B.'s magazine project. It could be started without capital, on credit. (Rather, buyers were wanted: minds starved for such a journal. - J.Z., 9.6.03.) Alexander "the Great" began his career with a great debt. So did Napoleon III, Caesar & Hitler. (Such people get credit relatively easy, e.g. from the rich crooks of the world. - J.Z., 9.6.03.) The man with capital is always exploited. The one with large debts is always supported. Eumenes borrowed from those who conspired to murder him. That made him safe for a while. (Later, I believe, he was sold by war weary soldiers to the enemy and they gained as a bargain an unmolested retreat for themselves, if my bad memory does not deceive me here. - J.Z., 9.6.03.) Leaders could legally or illegally loot. But publishers of pro-freedom journals neither want nor can loot their subscribers and, presently, cannot find many subscribers. However, alternative media now offer almost everybody a unique and vast chance as writer, editor and publisher and make them independent of the number of their readers, provided they do not expect to make a living this way. 11. I. 1950: "L'unique", of E. Armand
II/159 Name taken from Stirner. Individualist anarchist. Speaks of everything except Free Banking. No money for subscriptions + foreign exchange controls. Madelaine Vernet mentioned, who played a role in Follin's Républicque Supranationale. B. was in Paris 1926, for 8 days. Felt at home there. Paris police would not extend his visiting permit, because it could not imagine his visit being profitable to France! Werner Ackermann, on meaningless but nice sounding French remarks. (Poets offer many such utterances. - J.Z., 9.6.03.) B.'s long correspondence with W. A. seems totally lost. It dealt with all aspects of full minority autonomy.
II/160 Lord Raglan on Mythical Heroes, seems to have found a method to distinguish myths from old and uncertain history. Raglan vs. Goethe on Moses as a hero. Biblical Patriarchs no heroes, either, with one exception: Abraham. As opponent of child sacrificds & the principle of collective responsibility he attracted many refugees, e.g. newly married couples. Arabic customary secessionism greatly tempers the despotism of chiefs. Alas, this panarchistic trait was not fully developed. Could it be among nomads and custom as well as religion-ridden tribal people? 14. I. 1950: German "Individualist". In Germany principles will be taken serious once their technical realisation is made clear. In France principles, abstractions and generalisations are the foundation, leaving the reader unsatisfied.
II/161 Magazines in two languages, e.g. French & German, could combined the advantages of these two trends. Indians, likewise, still more so than the French, restrict themselves to principles, while the Chinese confine themselves to practical matters even more so than Germans. If that should be true, it would be a good basis for international collaboration between them. Exceptions conceded. Beginning of enlightenment according to Voltaire. German "Individualist" could, perhaps, advocate monetary freedom practices right away and demand self-help options for old age, & sickness provisions. (That was not my experience with "social insurance" in Germany. - J.Z.) To win the first 500 subscribers will be most difficult. (Only for print on paper! - J.Z.) Cooperatives: A free market for the organisation of work.
II/162 Salaries for organisers and public servants. Modest standard of living of the Jesuits. Likewise, Soviet rulers. However, their power incentives should be considered, too. Piece work combined with the coop principle. Managers of coops. Special contract proposed by coop manager. English workers prefer low stable income to high fluctuating incomes. Insurance against fluctuations. Terms like "wage system" and "employer" have become discredited. Freedom of expression greater under employers than among cooperators. Workers less tolerant than employers.
II/163 Hamburg employer who employed only girls with a child. All revolutions are largely unexpected. Leaders are more led by events than leading them. Robespierre. Compardon's work about victims of the Guillotine: They were mainly offenders against price controls, who might have added a few curses about the republic and its paper money, when they got into arguments about controlled prices. Demands for death penalty for "price sinners" are still wide-spread. English translation of B's monetary freedom books. Royalism in Germany, largely destroyed by dismantlings of factories.
II/164 High citizen tax and voting rights. The results of general franchise speak against it, everywhere. Age limite for voting. (But any self-chosen voting system is right for the volunteers in panarchies! - J.Z., 9.6.03.) Questions to be submitted to candidates. Robert Owen on order or commitment system for one's requirements. Spheres for its application.
II/165 Nuremberg law makers apparently did not know the relevant clause of the Weimar Constitution of 1919, on international law as part of the German constitution and binding for Germans. War criminals could have been prosecuted under German laws. Alas, even Nero had his followers. A shame for humanity. (Is it? I fell no collective guilt about it! - J.Z., 9.6.03.) Malthusians, Social Credit believers, statists - people! Sometimes they make it hard to merely laugh about them. 15. I. 1950: Is more capital required to provide more employment?
II/166 Capital required to achieve full employment. Fallacies involved compared with facts. Austrian School. Crisis times, capital exists only its utilisation rate differs. What "unemployment" would remain under Free Banking? Speed or re-employment under Free Banking. Marx's "Mehrwert" would be rapidly transferred to the working class. Soviet system and situation of its proletarians. Waste by planning and huge exploitation by the government. It is not that creating fresh jobs requires fresh capital; it is rather so, that creating jobs immediately provides fresh capital. Fully used productive capital becomes much more valueable. Factories might even come to work in three shifts and easily sell all their products. Their capital value would rise immensely.
II/167 Under Free Banking & Free Trade Germany could easily renounce foreign aid, e.g. Marshall Plan aid. New forms of bills of exchange would solve the export problem without creating problems with imports. Edgard Milhaud as innovator. 21. I. 1950: Something like a second Berlin Blockade has begun. B. fears Soviet censorship and asks for letters by air mail. Historians should catalogue wars begun by subordinates, like the war between China and Japan. 26. I. 1950:
II/168 Response of people to new ideas - after and Ideas Archive has been establishe plus full experimental freedom. "Protectionism" & "overpopulation". German federal minister "Professor" Niklas, demanded "protection" for German agriculture from foreign victuals. When others get tired of blockading Germany then Germany blockades "itself". (The percentage of vested interest people demanding such privileges for themselves, is usually very small compared with the total population, nevertheless they have much influence and the consumers have no say - and almost no expressed interest in the matter. - J.Z., 9.6.03.) Vaccination problem & accident insurance. What value has a human life, compared with the costs of accident prevention?
II/169 Costs of killing one person in war - about 30 kg of gold, a figure remarkably constant since Napoleon I. So our generals are not even efficient killers. (Many contract killers would do it for less. I knew one who admitted to having killed ten people - according to officials for as little as A 400 each. In his own "justification" he said: Only their mothers would have loved them. His victims were competing violent criminals. So this small analogy holds relatively far. If he truly had only such victims, then he did, actually, provide a public service and should not have been given a life sentence. But by now most soldiers are not volunteers but conscripts or with returns from official looting. - J.Z., 9.6.03.) Desertion plan. Prices on heads of war criminals cheaper than sending armies against them.
Dangerous work & costs in premiums and indemnities. Link to vaccinations. Ludwig Erhard & Walter Eucken mentioned as Free Traders, but not Rittershausen. Labour Party Manifesto. East Germany has full employment of a kind, like that of the ancient Egyptians, sometimes in public works as in Nile regulation or in less useful ones, like Pyramit building. Brugsch Pascha's report on the state of mathematics in old Egypt. Plutarch reports on how hated Cheops and Chefren were among th e people.
II/170 Eastern Germany and Soviet Union near to bankruptcy. Like the English economy. It may take another plan to bankrupt it completely. 5. II. 1950: Dr. Runge's article on Free Banking in Mannheim's "Morgen". Protectionist intentions good but its means are bad. However they know no other & are not interested in any other. Permission for peasants to pay for all their requirements int heir own notes, in practice, those of agricultural issuing institutes, would be the right means and a very good beginning for the general introduction of free banking. Supplies to Berlin practically stopped, again.
II/171 B's financial and physical inability to travel. Proudhon's health. Paying for German imports. Medieval commercial guilds granted merchants rights to pay all his debts by clearing at one of the great fairs. Crises and the right of creditors to cash from their debtors.
II/172 Financing of industry with stocks of goods that would otherwise remain unsold. Inflation. Zwangskurs, legal tender & cours forcé. Many forms of "legal tender". At least one should distinguish forced acceptance and forced value. (No proper survey of all forms of it exists as yet or is known to me. - J.Z.) Most economic textbooks got it wrong, especially the connection to inflation and to Gresham's Law. Why is no inflation possible without cours forcé? The names for abstract value unites express no real value. Only the foreign exchange rate and the black market rate for gold remain as measures. Depreciations not caused by over-emissions: Their result.
II/173 Paper money mostly without cours forcé existed in Germany, in the 19th century, except for a short period during the Napoleonic wars and in some small Thuringian States without economic importance. Prussia conducted 3 wars without it. (However, by now, now major, wrongful and unpopular wars can be financed without it and this is just as well. - J.Z., 9.6.03.) Without cours forcé even the greatest & most unwise over-emission cannot produce a real inflation, i.e., one with an increasing general price level. (Free & informed people are not so foolish as to price
their goods, services, contracts & labour in depreciated currency because they are free to used sound value standards, used in competing currencies instead. - J.Z. 10.6.03.) Such over-issued paper monies get a discount, that's all! The last German emperor, the Kaiser, & his ignorance. Inflation & deflation theories before & after 1914. Robert Koch example of the scientific approach to such questions. Correct inflation & deflation definitions. Rittershausen. Hayek managed to cally Rittershause of all people an inflationist. He might as well have called the Pope a Protestant.
II/174 CD-ROM use for all monetary freedom wrtings. Runge's money refrom project. He confounds the possibilities of reducing a discount of notes against precious metal with the possibilities to reduce the whole price level. (Perhaps most money reformers just pick one or a few false dogmas among thousands, as their "cure"? - J.Z., 10.6.03.) Taxfoundation detail. Guernsey Market Scheme. Woergl. 9. II. 1950: Free coinage, Lucia Dressel, "Die Weltgeld-Idee …", 1930, reports that G. R. Scaruffi, in a 1582 book "L'Alitinonfo", proposed the same details for sound coinage that B. had proposed. Important ideas rarely arise in only one head: Article by Lancelot L. White, "The Thinker's Digest", Winter 1949.
II/175 J.B. Coates, "What Is Personalism", ibid, shows that Personalists, too, among them Mournier, are not aware of monetary rights. Mournier approached Marxism. B. was not surprised: Even an ardent defender of liberty, if he neglects monetary rights, is lead logically and unavoidably led to totalitarianism. (If you doubt that regarding money, just compare how many libertarians have unquestioningly adopted totalitarian "nuclear strength". - J.Z., 10.6.03.) Tax foundation and W. B. Greene in "Mutual Banking". Writings on "fiduciary money" and, perhaps even, some of those on "fiat money" may contain some truths on the subject. Who has time, energy and opportunity to peruse them all? - J.Z. 10.6.03.) Unsound paper money - just requisitioning certificates. Monetary despotism. Lorenz von Stein on tax foundation money. Really: clearing cheques that exchange tax receipts for goods and services. Already Steuart insited that States have to enable their citizens to pay taxes by issuing a sufficinet quantity of tax foundation money.
II/176 This principle generalised. Everyone who expects payments should purchase his requirements with his IOUs in suitable forms, accepted by him at par. The old rule was: First provide money, then buy. The new and right rule: First buy, with freshly issued notes and then call in your outstanding debt, by accepting the freshly issued notes from anyone as means of payment. (He tried in vain to convey the same principle and practice to Meulen, for the payment of imports and the settlement of these debts by exports, in return for the presentation of the own notes used to pay for the imports. M. largely rejected the "readiness-to-accept-principle" in favour of his trust and gold redemption notions. - J.Z., 10.6.03.) The old rule applied largely to coins as money and when notes were considered to be mere money orders. It no longer applies when clearing is the normal form for trading. The coins are mere "Ersatz" for notes (or merely small change - J.Z.). In the old view notes are merely an "Ersatz" for coins.
9. II. 1950: Fuchs trial, communism, treason in favour of the Soviets. West-Berlin mail channeled through the hands of Soviet censors! Even Letters from West Germany were sent through an old mail centre in East Germany! Air mail from and to Berlin prohibited! Although blockade air fleet would easily have had space for its relatively small volume. All such these just by chance?
II/177 Even Meulen's visit to Berlin required a Soviet visa permit! Communists in the Post Office. 10. II. 1950: That party wins which controls the country's means of payment. Cobbet tradition.
II//178 Inflation, cours forcé & cours légal, forced value and forced acceptance, Zwangskurs & Annahmezwang. Definition of inflation, Jevons. Tax foundation money providing primariuly clearing beween the government and the taxpayer and also clearing between the government as buyer and the owners of goods & service providers, and also, under the money monopoly, for the clearing between all sellers of goods and services and all their buyers. (Clearing or mutual settlement is the essential element, not trust, confidence or a gold stock or a stock of foreign exchange. - J.Z., 10.6.03.) Deflation and stable price levels - in the middle of an inflation. Deflation and Inflation not opposites but often occurring at the same time, through the expectations involved in the price mechanism. A Mayor hoarded German's depreciated paper money in the expectation that its value would rise again! Confusion in most minds about inflation.
II/179 Foreign speculators blamed for inflation. Hoarding notes during an inflation! Paper money without cours forcé: discounts then wide-spread refusals. Inflation is impossible without cours forcé. That simple massage seems to need hammering in. Schopenhauer, lived in England for a while, called it a "matter-of-fact-nation". If only it would be, in every respect! Some kind of trust required, yes, but it is not sufficient. It must be supplemented by liberty to distrust, to any extent and for any duration and by opportunities to express distrust, towards, bankers, politicians and "heaven", in all that a man can distrust. The Exchange to publish all the time the state of trust and distrust, to expose the real values presently in existence - or the lack of them. Frankfurt/M the pre-1870 Exchange for notes.
II/180 Free discussions on the value of notes absent for decades. Redemptionism & its evasion. Copernican Theory compared with Monetary Freedom Theory. It seems complicated, although it is really much more simple than the other contrived system. Whoever presents the money theory so that average people will understand it would provide, perhaps, a more important insight than Copernicus did. Another start-up for monetary freedom: clearing notes for international trade, especially in times of "Dollar scarcity". "Milhaud-Pounds". Using the term "bond" instead of "notes" makes the obligation involved for the issuer much clearer, IF people are able to clear their minds of metal redemptionism and also of notions of "asset currencies".
II/ 181 Small margin in wholesale trade, down to 2 %. Keynes: "The General Theory of Employment …", based on the supposition that private notes and even clearing do not play any essential role in the econom. K. is only occupied with State monopoly money. His theory breaks down completely if freely issued notes lead to a really general theory. Keynes did not provide it. Some definitions on inflation from various sources.
II/182 11. II. 1950: B.'s health does not permit long voyages. Runge's method. Not all processes are reversible. Prices in West Germany, reckoned in gold, are already low. "Count in gold, let competition work and Free Banking, too, then the right price of every product will be paid and can be paid." - The B. method.
II/183 Lectures in Germany, in English rather than German. Paying for German imports, with the right method. Woergl. Party programs, Labour Party program. Parties think that important reforms are possible without Free Banking. Political leaders with such errors in their brains cannot lead. Postal disservices. 12. II. 1950: Philippine limited "free" gold market.
II/184 Gold demand from China, prices in Western Germany & Berlin low, reckoned in gold. Adam Smith on gold production costs and other labour costs. Jevons. Marx, "Labour Money" of State Socialists. The element of "expectation". The first thing to get an honest value is to expose money to the money market. Value theories
II/185 Jevons, at 47, died prematurely, when many celebrities began to write. Adam Smith did not distinguish between spent & expected labour. His theory was not developed enough. Vaccination & Immunisation. Free Banking & Free Trade may even have a greater effect on public health. Rider Haggard's "She". Biological warfare attempt during the US Civil War. John Dewey, human nature, primitive vs. cultural life. Schopenhauer et al: Culture is as natural for human beings as breathing and eating or building dams for beavers.
II/186 Technique & culture. Sound weapon or Red Indians. Complicated marriage laws of Australian Aborigines. Physical strength comparisons between natives and "civilised" people. 18. II. 1950: People, who pretend to be Iindividualists and do not acknowledge the Individual's right to offer his labour in the form of freely issued notes, are not true Individualists. Catholics, "Weekly Register", fail to apply their subsidiarity principle to note-issuing.
Free Banking would blow up, together with many other old Isms, also the old Catholocism. Catholic Modernism, Kant, Abbé Loisy, Schell.
II//187 Compulsory acceptance without cours forcé. Lord King case. Legal tender, Inflation, note issues by debtors of the bank, discounted by bankers. The banker cannot issue a greater quantity of notes than his debtors could issue. "Commercial body" or "payment community". Readiness to accept among his debtors forms the real foundation for his notes. Limits for issues: The possibility to "make good" presented notes by ready for sale goods or servics of in payment of debts. Normal circulation path. (Compare charts in PEACE PLANS 41, now also available by e-mail.) Other theories: Redemptionism. Long-term loans in notes ares the business of the banker. Raising loans through circulation. Asset currencies.
II/188 The flawed theories and practices led to the false conclusion: central banking and monetary despotism are required as "solutions", just like some defects in private enterprises and in the employer-employee relationship led to State Socialism or State "Capitalism". Bankers mere practitioners, more or less law-abiding, with no knowledge of or interest in true monetary theories. Notes issued on the "clearing cheque principle". Trust vs. debt foundation.
Panics would be rapidly dissolved through readiness to accept at par. Retailers would welcome them as sales booms. Notes on the old principles will not disappear rapidly enough and do not have sufficient immediate utility. Speaking & writing will not make monetary freedom clear enough by experiences and experiments will.
Role of deposits, old and new system. Central banking magnifies the spread of blunders. Effect of bank loans on general price level. Jevons' "Investigations in Currency & Finance". Bank loan periodicity.
II/189 Seasonal & sunspot fluctuations. Prof. Hirsch on Germany's products ready for sale in 1930. Price policy of owners. New bank loans, capital market and Exchanges. Share prices of 1927 trebled within a year through abundant bank credit. Goods prices follow in the far distance - or, in the case of a crash, become depression prices under monetary despotism. How many short-term deposits were thus malinvested? Effect of the repayment of loans. When loans are short-term, the issue and reflux effects cancel each other out. Are banks free to lend or not? They must lend what they can.
II/190 Bankers & even scientists are in many cases unable to estimate a country's resources. (But sound note-issuing bankers would be able to estimate their short-term debtor's resources. - J.Z., 10.6.03.) Dates of bank loans are important. (For short-term as well as medium and long-term loans. The latter rightful only with corresponding capital, i.e., savings and investments for that purpose and for such periods. - J.Z., 10.6.03.) Loans and price level. Small effect, unless "asset currencies" with cours forcé are over-issued. Over-issues without cours forcé. (Will be different situation under competitive note issue compared with monopolistic note issue. - J.Z., 10.6.03.) Railway money, Zander. Rascals as issuers. Effect of continuing circulation of sound coins. China under emperors. Ottomar Hupt, Arbitrages et Parités, 1894. Harsh punishment preventing the use of gold.
II/191 Bullion market, gold market. Acceptance at shops, acceptance at bankers for interest-bearing deposits. Long-term loans and note issues. Long-term loans are not the purpose of note issues. But they can be lent with saved and so invested notes. Under freedom there is never a problem in getting long-term loans, even at low interest. Building Society experience. Easier to get money than to find reliable debtors. There are people who profit from long-term loans granted in Central Bank notes. But that is no reason to compel others to respect the cours forcé. Benefits to debtors from loans in depreciating legal tender money tend to be only temporary & cannot be indefinitely obtained again and again. Soone or later to creditors wise up to their inflation losses - and grant no longer credits under such conditions. Rightful militias.
II/192 Option clause notes circulating at par. This old practice should be systematically extended & developed instead of merely repeated. Discount as limit for note-issuing. Inflation and price level. Prices measured in gold. Meulen proposed a "bank pound" as a unit of value, so that even gold and silver would become mere commodities, not themselves value units. Gold not ideal measure of value. Just least evil, objectively. Free advocacy for and choice of alternatives. B. was for a long time adherent of Irving Fishers and index standards. Later he became convinced that I.V. underestimated the virtues of gold. Silvio Gesell (Gsell) system, so tyrannical that the Soviets could learn from it. German adherents wanted to imprison users of private means of payment.
II/193 German Gesellians: Invariable unit by State compulsion. Gold as a good index. The best possible approximation to the bank pound is the old gold sovereign. Its vississitudes are not due to its gold-properties but to the old and bad laws, insisting on bank redemptionism and entitlement of every creditor to demand gold coins from his debtors. Both compulsions may be removed without giving up gold as a measure of value. Free choice of value standards as an essential natural, human and citizen right. Division of variation losses between creditors and debtors. Bastiat, workers as major beneficiaries of increased savings and their productive investment. Share of labour in the product tends to increase, that of capital to decrease, while actual labour input decreases and capital input increases.
II/194 There is no good "Ersatz" for the gold standard. Abolition of conscription. Generally a good thing. Exceptions. Alternatives to it even then. Kant on governments acting reasonably. (Did they ever? - J.Z., 10.6.03.) Early governmental intervention against Hitler. (What private and libertarian interventions, very early ones, would have been rightful and necessary, to prevent the rise of this regime or achieve its early and almost bloodless overthrow? Libertarians and anarchists still fail to tackle and answer such questions seriously! - J.Z., 10.6.03.) Concentration camps. (The technique required to effectively prevent, resist & overthrow totalitarian regimes and dictatorships still has to be largely discovered, rediscovered and developed. - J.Z., 10.6.03.) Josephus on siege of Jerusalem while inside it civil war raged. Tilly's siege of Magdeburg while internally there was a riots about exemptions for rich people from helping to defend its walls. (If one has let matters slide and deteriorate for a long time, then sometimes, some compulsion may offer the only way out. - J.Z., 10.6.03.)
II/195 Mostley & other Fascists are probably unable to apply the Desertion system that was used by King Wen and by Mao. However, a Mao could use is and that the Nazis, too, received many deserters and volunteers, is not a good sign. But genuine liberators could apply it most successfully. 22. 2. 1950: Kant, the natural power of ideas, nature's wasteful methods. Quetelet, Galton.
II/196 Size & weight of Italian recruits of about 1900. Statistical law of distribution. Uniqueness of "The Individualist". Without Free Banking China will always be as poor as it is now and driven, by her paper money system to attack its neighbours. The secret connection between oppressive foreign policy (and internal policy! - J.Z.) and a bad monetary system is still to be explained. Calcutta: About 3 million sleep in the streets. Tariff barriers are a blockade, carried out by the own government. But "The Free Trader" does not agree with the Free Trade opinion, 100 years ago, on Free Trade in money.
II/197 Informed on Free Banking, Stephen King-Hall would have demanded, in 1945: We must impose upon Germany the Free Banking System for our own safety. Exclusive currency as bad as ever. Vulgar economists. Investment trusts. Absence of Free Banking leads unavoidably to State Socialism. Monetary liberty - the mother of all other liberties, which will enjoy only a short life without the protection of their natural mother. Home Rule for England. Rommel and Tacitus on Corpulo, Nero's general. Rommel did not resist Hitler early enough. For all too long he just played at being a good career soldier. Really good generals would kill tyrants. Elections & Aldred.
II/198 Roscher on influence of private interests in conceiving econonomic theories. Case of Benjamin Franklin, a printer of notes, for governments, thus favouring paper money. B. F. understood nothing of the theory of paper money. Without that private and profitable interest, he might have explored it. 3. III. 1950: Zwangskurs, legal tender Lord King. Inflation: Limit for issues: The amount which the debtors are able to convert into articles of day-to-day use plus the amount which they are obliged to accept for due debts. Financing railway building by notes? Such dangerous practices are called in Germany: "Ride across Lake Constance". Based on a winter-time story. 100 years ago England was constantly in a state of deflation. Thus all kinds of notes were eagerly accepted by the public. Thus there and then it was possible even to grant long-term loans in notes.
II/199 The obligation ot redeem notes in gold obscures all kinds of traffic (& significant covers - J.Z.) where notes are concerned. Share issue or debentures a much better kind of financing than granting long-term credits in notes. After about 1850 no railway was any longer financed by notes. The danger was recognised by then. All such attempts will have very different results in a state of affairs where the circulation is fully provided with means of payment. In what manner must members of the community support long-term loans? The right to refuse paper money. The man who wants investment credit must look for corresponding creditors. With the help of a banker or a broker he can find them. At least it was not M.'s intention to prohibit B.'s system. State socialism cannot provide sufficient credits.
II/200 Private investment not only of saving but of goods which are otherwise hard to impossible to sell. Details in B.'s 1934 book: "The Realization of the Proposal of Milhaud". Deposits and their lending under proper timing.
Individual & coop bankers. Annual savings make loans via bankers' notes superfluous. South Sea Bubble. Prosperity via repeal of bad laws. False finance for genuine enterprises. Swindles.
II/201 For US crises of 1907 & 1929 the vary bad money laws of the USA were the most effective cause. Pound note used hundreds of times. Every sale is counterbalanced by the succeeding purchase. Situation no worse than it would be if all these trades had been made by barter. These transactions, using a pound note, were simply made easier. More trade exchanges do not increase prices, might even reduce them. Notes as facilitators of clearing. Jevons' sun spot theory. German monetary revolution, 1921-1924 (1922-1923? - J.Z.) West Berlin & emigration of J.Z. in 1959.
II/202 4. III. 1950: Desertion plan, Mao's system of warfare & pacifism. Soviet appeals to German soldiers to desert. Germans were right not to trust Soviet govt. promises. What would it take to induce Russian soldiers to disarm their IBM's? Or bomber pilots to surrender their atomic weapons. The important role of rightful governments in exile. Need for a genuine liberation & defence program.
II/203 Payment of Chinese imports from England by means of payment of Chinese origin, using a sound value standard. Free Trade plus monetary freedom can win allies. Most important may be the offer of "equal treaties", offering exterritorial autonomoy and personal laws to Chinese e.g. in England. Panarchism.That aspect of colonialism helped to make even Communism somewhat popular in China. Friends of a Free China should associate everywhere. (Rather, friends of many different but all tolerant Chinese panarchies! - J.Z., 10.6.03.) Birth control in China, repeal of all race discrimination laws & practices. Free migration for Chinese - and their own panarchies and Free Banking & Free Trade for all who want them. Goebbels on colonies. Monetary factor. Schacht prohibited publishing articles about new commercial questions without written permission by the Reichsbank. Protectionism & foreign exchange control and central bank notions leading to motives for war. A subdued Ukraine would have had to accept Reichsmark in payment. Free trade without monetary freedom is not sufficiently free and thus, unintentionally, promotes Protectionism, interventionism, conquests, monopolies and internal and external strife. Japan was blockaded by the West & its own Protectionists. How much more of a "Japanese Miracle" would have happened after WW II under full economic freedom? The present system still best only in making huge losses.
II/204 Malthusianism and the optimum population theory of Prof. Edwin Cannan. Birth control isn't the answer for China, either. Compulsory abortions constitute a great weakness for this regime, which was so far not exploited. Offer all these threatened parents not only Free Trade, Free Banking & Free Migration but also Free Choice of Governments in China then how many subjects would remain for a regime that has only volunteers for birth controls - among the own membership? "Offering" them only immigration restrictions, illigal emigration, concentration camps for the illegals and deportation back to Red China, apart from some chance to be officially recognised as a political refugee & thus accepted in Australia, is certainly not good enough but will arouse justified anger e.g. against the Australian government and many of its subjects, supporting such policies, even among anti-communist Chinese. As a result, one day Australians might find themselves under compulsory abortions imposed by a conquering Chinese government, while its Chinese immigrants would not be under birth controls by it in Australia but would rather get child support out of taxes also raised from Australians. How would they like that? Apart from the innocent aborted babies, some of them, all too many, would deserve this equal treatment to the present Chinese victims of compulsory abortions, which seems to be of not interest to most Australians or may be even favoured by them. - German army, defence, standing armies & rightful militias. As an old adherent of Tucker I cannot concede rights to a government. (Alas, T., too, under the influence of Stirner, came to deny the existence of rights. - J.Z., 10.6.03.) Conscription under present conditions. Dismantlings. Collective responsibility. Bible stand on this. Cour forcé. Limit for loans.
II/205 Little scope for loans in notes. 5. III. 1950: India, Zander, Rittershausen, Sanyal, war with Pakistan. Nationalism. Gold as a measure of value vs. Index numbers, Irving Fisher
II/206 Valuation in terms of gold weight units the least evil. Value of the bullion market. Right of all people to use in their own affairs their own standard of value. Right to use in my own affairs gold ounces, valued at the bullion market, as a standard of value. Right to trade freely at the bullion market. Dealings in futures must be done openly. We agree that the principles and techniques proposed by M. should not be imposed, either. The idea of an invariable unit is good. At present great disagreements on invariable unit. M. plan presupposes the decision of one man, the best to be found, on the standard to be used by his customers. The quantity of notes being important for their value, then he would also fix the quantity of notes. In other words, he would provide a kind of central banking scheme but only on a small and local scale, with many of its faults, but competitively practised with other systems.
Do you concede to others the right to choose other value standards, even the gold weight value standard? Nuclear threat. Nobody has a serious program. What are the next steps. Defence of the West, without mass murder devices. Liberation of suppressed, without such devices, even without invading conventional armies.
II/207 Situation as in 1812 Prussia: Our government will do nothing against Napoleon. What can we do? Convention of Tauroggen, 1812, between General Yorck and Diebitsch. Clausewitz helped prepare it. A similar English League should discuss a warfare method like that of Mao during the last 2 years, treatment of those who are won over by Mao's methods, the formation of one (several! J.Z.) Russian provisional govt. in exile and a good program for it, methods of collaboration between that govt. and the League, Soviet nuclear disarmament with the help of dissenting Soviet soldiers and officers, methods to keep all promises made in the warfare with Mao's scheme for deserters. F. W. Hoare's article in "City Press": "Romance of Private Banking". Convertibility. What kind? Into gold only? Or, rather, into goods, services, and debt payment certificates? Conversion via an honest exchange market. Devaluation.
II/208 Shortage of agricultural products and raw materials? Devaluation and foreign exchange controls. Imports without any controls, payable in means of exchange not convertible into gold in the old sense (only a a free gold market, not at the banks of issue!) and the recipients of these payments will assure corresponding exports through their use of these means of payment, either directly or indirectly. US might even be prepared to cancel all previous debts to it. It is under such strong export pressure. Why not use such a mentality while it exists? However, Scotch as well as English day: Imports without limitations and controls? Rather perish! (Individuals, alone or in association, free to do so, would use this option, buying e.g. cars and prefab houses cheaply. Also, e.g. cheap shorts. Many years ago, Australian men were "protected" from imported $ 1 shirts, just to privilege some technologically less advanced Australian shirt producers. Likewise, we are still "protected" from cheap overseas bananas. - J.Z. 10.6.03.) B. mentions the "protection" of Germans from cheap cauliflowers. Who protects the German consumers? Certainly not the government nor the privileged internal cauliflower producers.

END OF THIS "SUMMARY". Don't complain. Provide a better one!

Help to turn all disagreements into a public and well recorded board game, which, step by step, must be won. ==================================================================================

Contents Section III
of file: Meulen - Beckerath correspondence, pages 1 - 204, 6. 3. 1950 - 6. 12. 1950


Contents of Volume III
Letters of U. v. Beckerath
to Henry Meulen


III/1 6. III. 1950: Some points of agreement: 1.) Liberty of note issue without legal restrictions, 2.) the existing laws against swindle are sufficient to meet swindle in issuing notes. 3.) the right to refuse acceptance … 4. Standard of value depends upon the issuer … 5. The time validity of a note should be limited. Different opinion on how the public will accept the notes, on notes directly for long-term loans
III/2 Panic on asset currency, cover by interest-bearing securities, discount: Why this round-about way? Why not begin with selling securities? Example of Swiss Bank Bonds. B.'s system has never such troubles. B. system for exchanging existing goods for other existing goods. M. system: To exchange future goods for existing goods. That's possible with the help of interest. B. believes in the possibility, likelihood and even desirability of frequent runs. Who is in the safe side? 11. III. 1950:
III/3 A paper money without cours forcé is better than one not subject to the daily renewed investigations of a really free market. Chile: 47 dollars an ounce of gold. Prof. Spahr still believes gold redemption at 35 dollars to be possible. Spahr favours exclusive currency. Constantine, the real creator of Christendom - a religion which already then had not much to do with the reforms proposed by its founder. Constantine abolished the Denar, which had cours forcé and whose value was determined by the Caesars according to the requests of the public treasury (sounds familiar, doesn't it? - J.Z., 11.6.03) by the Solidus = 1/73 of a Roman pound = 4.55 grams of fine gold. His system was honest although imperfect, a great progress. South Africa. A war against it by India?
III/4 International clearing certificates with acceptance foundation, valued e.g. in US dollars. Discount & its effects. London "Society of Individualists". Legal tender the basis for all present attacks on liberty. It is the beginning of British slavery. Prof. Adolf Wagner, on The Russian Paper Currency, 1868 and the Theory of Money and Credit leading to the Peel's Bank Act, 1862. He was influential. Par. 3 of the German Banking Act of 1875 prohibited for every federated German State the introduction of cours forcé. Increased credit by no means an essential element of inflation. Confucius on changing the meaning of words. Inflation and dearth. Socialism in Tucker's meaning: voluntary or cooperative socialism
III/5 24. III. 1950: Value, desire & sacrifice expressed by demand & supply. Salt monopoly. Irving Fisher's "Compensated Dollars". Silvio Gesell, Major Douglas. Sinners against logic, mental deaths and the continued existence of churches. Prof. Sidgewick on tabular standard. Neither can become just systems. Index number standard fanatics also adhere to "exclusive currency" with its central banking & severe punishments for the use of alternative means of payment. Inventors, innovators and their intolerance - to be cured by panarchism of full experimental freedom.
III/6 Transforming desire and readiness to supply goods, services & labour into effective monetary demand through the free & private issuing of notes. Governments, politicians and statesmen know nothing about this nor do they want to learn about this - they have the central bank at their disposal. Under freedom for note issue the demand for labour could be easily and vastly increased. Karl Marx. His "surplus value" would then be returned to labour. Wages will rise as long as the demand for labour continues. Then the gain for all by improving the industrial and agricultural plant may be the most important factor. Limitations: Productivity and consumption potential. "Exploiting classes" will become producers, without State planning and concentration camps. Setting free the economic forces, analogous to natural digestion. Referral to Bastiat's Economic Harmonies.
III/7 A monetarily freed labour market will solve the problem of the distribution of the social product among all producers and also that of abolishing exploitation and unemployment. Only it can solve such tasks. The present labour market is not free. Merely the offer of labour is free. The demand for labour is restricted by the limited amount of exclusive currency. On "distribution" and "re-distribution". Rightfully acquired goods are already rightfully distributed. Property rights and free exchange. No other separate distribution system is required than that of a really free market in all spheres, for forms of money, value standards, exchange media etc. and capital values. 25. III. 1950: What if the demand for metallic gold should become greater than the offer? What would happen if all prices are expressed in weights of gold, all face values of notes, too, all debtors of banks are obliged to accept the notes of their banks at par, an absolutely free bullion market is established & free private coinage?
III/8 Six different cases when the demand for gold rises. Cover of notes by gilt-edged securities bearing high interest. U.S. Government during Civil War, German Rentenbank-Scheine of 1923. Refusal of notes not at par. Greene reported notes with a discount as circulating. But a shop like Woolworth would not have accepted them - its own notes excepted. The vehement demand for gold that may arise when creditors can legally demand gold payments from their debtors
III/9 This is an artificially created demand. It can be rightfully replaced by a legal rule that the creditor must be content with paper valued at a free bullion market. In Asia, not under Western influence, creditors are not entitled to receive metal but only "local currency", as was the term in Chinese documents. Zander does, perhaps, still possess them. In England such crises were several times ended by suspending the Bank of England's obligation to redeem its notes. Credit should not depend on a stock of gold & even a maximum exportation of gold should not prevent the granting of fresh credits. Aldred. Heine on debts. People who are not politicians have the time to study the right of issue, & to become aware that it is a more fundamental right than the right to strike or to riot, thus advancing the true revolution. Eastern Communist system called: "Poster Socialism". 26. III. 1950: The monetary demand for gold was rarely really satisfied, at least not in the last decades of the old style gold standard.
III/10 Interest rate and the creditor's real desire: not gold, but profit. Foreign creditors claim to gold & lack of cable connection. After international telephone connections were established gold shipments became rare. See: Prof. Liefmann, "Geld und Gold", 1918. A commodity becoming the basis of a monetary standard wins new economic properties, whether it is gold, corn or cowries. It tends to stabilise prices, the stronger the more persons are involved. Index price curves for retail prices often quite different from those of wholesale prices. Gold as a commodity varies much in price as a wholesale good, although less than every other good, except, according to Irving Fisher, carpets! It varies much less as a commodity sold in shops, rings, etc. It can hardly vary in price, expressed in gold coins, under free coinage.
III/11 Tendency towards stable prices even observed in times of big inflations, but not when the inflation has become galloping. Gold production per head and year is only a few grams. Maximum economic freedom will reveal, by competition, the best standard of value. It might even be the paper pound of a well-managed bank. 27. III. 1950: Increase in gold production was several times correlated with a sharp decrease of prices. Californian gold field discovery. When fresh gold was correlated with increases in the general price level there were obviously other factors involved.
III/12 Other factors than additional gold: Transport improvements, expansion of monetary economy, market expansion. Effect of the invention of salted herrings. Dutch economic development, Spanish Armada. Role of fairs as clearing institutions, Roscher, Jevons on clearing house in London. Middle Age trade without cash. Price level 1848-1857, gold production and bad harvests and extreme colds in 1855. Prussian birth & mortality statistic for this time. Californian gold may not have contributed more than 1% to the price increases of the 1850's. 28. III. 1950:
III/13 Paying for German Imports. German rules weigh at least a pound. Belgium free in this respect. Only a few know all the restrictive rules. Smuggled goods are paid for fast & in a satisfactory manner. These methods should be studied. Best method: Milhaud's purchasing certificates, even if they are at a small discount. Instances. Prices for growers compared with prices at retailers. Gresham's Law reversed, here, too.
III/14 Silvio Gsell (Gesell): He did not know or consider the right of issuing notes can outweigh all effects of even the worst hoarding - provided the country's creditors (landlords, workers etc.) are not entitled to claim the hoarded "exclusive currency". Woergl experiment & its true nature: Referral to B.'s "Does the Provision of Employment Necessitate Money Expenditure?" Inflation, dearness & unemployment insurance. Runge et al wrongly believe that fore mere clearing some amount of cash is necessary. Even remaining unsettled balances could be carried forward to the next clearing & thus need not be paid in cash. Nazis. Giro Bank of Hamburg. "Man is Stupid" by Richet. Pearl S. Buck: "Dangerous Errors about China": Food difficulties of China, in normal times, is the selling of victuals, not their production. But in cases of dearth or civil war food becomes scarce as in other countries. 29. III. 1950: If Scotland were governed by Englishmen acknowledging the Scots' Right of Banking, i.e., of issuing notes without cours forcé, the progress would by like that from Darwin's original apes to Walter Scott's heroes. If Scotland were governed by Scots denying this right, then there would, very probably, be no progress at all. Something tragic about free banking propaganda? Nietzsche said: Everything decisive happens in spite of resistance to it. Free Banking not merely a technique. It is a claimed right.
III/15 Tucker thought that issuing notes in spite of legal prohibitions is the most revolutionary act. Zwangskurs, cours forcé, legal tender. M. believed that Banks can grant loans in notes for greater amounts than the value of goods, services and credits at their debtors. Thus he takes the whole country's resources into consideration. B. said: That may be a thing for granting credit in general, which is very different from note credit. Can M.'s notes raise the price level? B. denies that. Trust. Exclusively large notes vs. notes also in small denominations. Note issuing without the deposit business or separate from it. B.: Issuing bank is to provide the means to pay wages, salaries & running expenses and so avoid unemployment and many bankruptcies, in the cases which occurred so often: Raw materials are at hand, orders as well, labour, too, the machines are in order - but there is not money to pay wages with and consumers have too little money to buy all that the retailers offer them. Thus workers must be dismissed and once the first factory has done this a kind of economic chain reaction sets in, which may affect more than 50 % of the country's workers. When there is no unemployment then getting long-term credit, under conditions profitable to both sides, is no problem. Therefore, a note-issuing bank should not do long-term loan business but concentrate on turnover credits. Real bills doctrine. Banking principle. Notes as clearing certificates or cut-up bills of exchange. Then they are self-liquidating. In addition and based on this, they have readiness-to-accept foundation among the debtors of the bank of issue.
III/16 M.: Banking based on "reserves". B.: Note issuing banks will have, at least initially, no reserves except the interest their debtors must pay. (The discounted short-term security. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) The other reserve consists in the obligation of its debtors to accept its notes at par. Loans based upon the Bank's own capital or upon corresponding deposits by its customers to be distinguished from note issues & their reflux. Discount of notes & panics. Reflux obligation for issued notes. Large vs. small denominations. Wage payments formerly largely in coins. Now wage payments the most important element in note-issue banking policy. Runge and his premise that German prices are too high. B. held them to be too low, that's why German competition is feared. Ezra Pound. Proudhon said that one cannot be at the same time a good poet and a good economist. Lamartine, Solon, devaluation. Conscription under present circumstances, in the face of the Soviet threat. Defence the libertarian way.
III/17 Revolutionary & liberating defence, territorialism, governments, peace protestors. Paris Commune did not justify conscription. Advantages of freeing banknotes from cours forcé and even from being legal tender, largely discussed only in elder monetary literature, but rarely in English writings. In a few books of US authors. Best book on this: Prof. Adolf Wagner: Die russische Papierwaehrung", 1868. Banking Enquete of 1908. Most members did not know that German banknotes had no cours forcé. Thus the govt. had assured the German people that it could trust its notes. They could not be inflated because they were not endowed with cours forcé. (They were too much redemptionists to care but could not envision all employees demanding payment in gold coins, either. - J.Z., 11. 6. 03.) Mentalities can radically change within a few decades. 30. III. 1950: Agricultural production in Germany
III/18 Market gardeners demand "protection". Germany needs to export her bureaucracy. (But who would accept it and even pay for it? - J.Z., 11.6.03.) Unemployment: Essential factor: How to provide payment for the unemployed after getting them employment. The right to work must be claimed in form of a right of banking. Who knows that? Free Banking so far was always represented as a technical matter. Individualists must proclaim it as a right. Did Armand ever claim the right of Free Banking? 31. III. 1950: At time of Crusads a fable arose on a book titled: "The Three Impostors", meaning Moses, Christ & Mohammend, whose crimes were glorified by other impostors, so that the two Testaments and the Koran did not deserve any esteem or trust. A book with this title never existed then. It was believed that the Templars possessed the book and were no longer Christians. This fable helped king Phillip in exterminating them. (B. pointed out orally to me and, probably elsewhere, to others, that the king expected to find and to be able to confiscate their gold and silver treasures - but found only records on how they may their living largely by non-cash clearing transactions. Alas, that did not turn him into a friend & promoter of clearing, just like it would not so convert a modern bank robber. - J.Z., 11.6.03.)
III/19 There was a wide-spread feeling that Christianity was not well founded & only upheld by the Inquisition. When the great enlightenment began, it found its field well prepared. Negative effect of the prohibition of Nazi literature. Suppressing literature helps to promote and sell it and supports the belief that it would contain some suppressed truths.(Most typical Nazi writings could probably be reproduced on a single CD-ROM, together with their best refutations. Why isn't it done that way? - J.Z., 11.6.03.) South African gold mining & working conditions. Slave uprising. New interpretation of the old "divide and rule" advice: Allow individuals to divide into volunteer communities, all without a territorial monopoly. These communities would be as free as they want to be and would neither be dominated nor a threat to others. Mixed marriages favoured by Portuguese. That reduced racism and sedition. 6. IV. 1950: M.'s short visit to B.
III/20 Well-being & good company. Zander, Vierkandt family, von Natzmer, convention of Tauroggen & Napoleon, obstacles to publishing. Freedom from taxes for reconstruction purposes. 7. 4. 1950: Gold standards, different concepts. Eight features of a real gold standard
III/21. Authors of the Four Bills on this. Persian laws, under Shah Nassr ed din, did not entitled creditors to gold coins. They had to be content with "local currency" to the value of gold. That value is determined by the free market price of the local currency, reckoned in gold. Zander: Same laws in China under emperors. Gold-Rechenwaehrung, gold-clearing currency or gold-accounting currency. Hardly any discussion in literature of right to refuse means of payment. In Prussia this right was acknowledged until 1. 1. 1910.
III/22 Inflation & price increases. Distinct word like "dearness" no longer used where it is applicable rather than "inflation". 14. 4. 1950: Some notes on gold
III/23 Gold production, volume of this gold, about 1/3rd used industrially. 18. 4. 1950; 21. 4. 1950: Oranges made transparent, making the human body similarly transparent?
III/24 X-rays. Meulen the only Englishman who demands the right to issue notes freely. Jacques Bernoulli, "Ars conjectandi", 1713 & Buffon on probability.
III/ 25 German note issuing theory: Only sold goods are fit to serve as a base for currency. (Sold by e.g. factory to wholesaler. - J.Z.) The issue of notes helps to finance the whole continuing process from production to sale by the retailers, through corresponding short-term loans, paid in notes. Circulation charts in PEACE PLANS 41. Bad experiences with attempts to finance machines, buildings etc. with notes. "One does not build with banknote issues." Long term loans require capital ready for it. Adam Smith. When notes are issued instead of mortgage bonds, the notes get a discount. Adolf Wagner, Roscher, Lexis, Lorenz von Stein. B.: Their criticism did not go far enough. Not shopkeepers but their customers are the last buyers.
III/26 The last buyer must be included in the system to make it work as well as it can. So B. proposed his order system for supplies some time in advance, to assure sales, on the well known scheme of "put", of "call" and "put and call" of the London Exchange. In German: "Vorpraemie" and "Rueckpraemie". Details in his book on employment. Some notes by J.Z. on this. The banker's character is not good enough to cover the speculative risk, of not finding buyers at the time when they are needed. Not only trust is needed in the banker's moral and business sense but the possibility to make good the notes, and that at any time when this is desired. Insofar B. was also an adherent of the old "redemption on demand", but not in gold. Note holders do not really want gold coins but consumer commodities.
III/27 Individual bankers as note-issuers. Order system or commitment system might suffice if it covered 1/3 rd of supplies, the 2/3rd being of a kind that people have to buy it, if they have the money for it: Bread, vegetables etc.
Another order system: Commitment to purchase for minimum amounts and periods from a certain supplier, e.g. Woolworth or Coles. Consumer coops. Other attractions to buy from certain people, e.g. cheaper petrol for Woolworth buyers. Division of labour principle partly ignores refusal of some to buy the products of others. (Offers on the market do not always assure sales. Compare the offer of shares or houses, artwork or fashion clothing for sales. Low production costs combined with high sales costs. Speculative stocking and selling is not always successful & leads to considerable losses - and high prices. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) Length of loans at the discretion & judgement of bankers? Yes, for capital loans. Tucker agreed there with M. in a talk. But the note-issuing banker must act on principles and the lines between sound & unsound short-term loans and sound and unsound long-term loans can and should be drawn and kept. Long-term loans granted directly in notes must be avoided.
III/27 They would be not much better than over-issued fiat money, i.e., without immediate and sufficient reflux. But at least they would not be cours forcé notes, i.e. remain refusable by the sufficiently enlightened potential acceptors.
III/28 Long-term loans on the Huebner principle: The banker should not sell better, longer or cheaper credits than he bought. Turnover speed of money must today be much larger than before. Prudency and care about safety of loans. A banker must be able to distinguish a real bill from a mortgage. He should never accept legal forms as representing facts. Here begins the banker's prudence. M. seems to assume that means for longer-term loans are scarce and should thus be supplied by note issues. But for savings banks and building societies what is lacking is good opportunities for their investors. Strike of savers under heavy taxes, inflation, controls, regulations etc. But this capital shortage is artificially produced. Scratchley clause against repayments without consent of the Building Society. Price effect of loans in notes. Emergency prices, normal prices. The ideal prices are fair and just prices, not low prices. When do rising prices become inflationary? Snowball effect of a loan in times of a slump?
III/29 Mankind had never too many goods. The greatest "overproduction" never satisfied all real wants. But the real wants (and productive potentials, offered in exchange - J.Z., 11.6.03.) were often not permitted to appear as monetary demand. Loans to disaster areas. Not note credits but capital credits, including consumer goods supplies, are then needed. Insufficient consumer goods remain for shop foundation money issues. Imports largely on credit. Credit to be quite independent from a country's supply with gold. Possible and advisable even if there is no gold left at all. This can be achieved by full monetary freedom, not by the limited Free Banking that M. proposed. Free Trade with free payment & clearing options. Balance of trade, between two countries as opposed to the automatic balancing of all trades and payments on a world-wide scale. (Even for two countries there is what is seen and what is not seen by the statistics. I often took small & hidden reserve sums across borders that were not noted by their guards and statisticians, without paying attention to volumes of foreign exchange regulations. To the extent that they were in the home currency, I thus promoted exports from my home country & deserved, according to the official export faith, a medal rather than a penalty. - J.Z., 11.6.03.)
III/30 Natural reflux of all paper monies that arrive overseas. The less governments meddle in such affairs, the better the subjects will be supplied. Free Trade also in means of payment and even freedom to try new manners of payment. Discounts and free markets enable us to expert continuously, to get continuous employment. For every commodity there exists some discount which will make it the cheapest in the world. Discounts mean private planning & automatic balancing of accounts between countries. Discounts as a great invention. Discounts provide the advantages of devaluation without its disadvantages. Refusal of English Pound note at Dunkerque. Disobedience may be a great virtue. Following Tucker, we should investigate economic and social disobedience.
III/31 Free Trade is a right of man. Smugglers are the champions of that right & deserve the same esteem as other revolutionaries. Buyers and sellers at the black market are worthy of being canonised. Issuing of notes by shops. Transfer of that right to their bank of issue. Legal organisation does not matter much but their way of making good their notes does. Redemption in all kinds of consumer commodities & services vs. redemption in one commodity only. Role of tradition. Bad traditions should not be followed. Try out offering gold in varying quantities, while other banks issue notes accepted at their face value, counted in gold weight. B. predicts that M-type bankers will get beaten up, however well their system may be founded, at least in theory. Ease and flexibility of their different systems. Suitability for revolutions or for normal times. Communist coup may happen in Berlin. Collective responsibility
III/32 Saddam Hussein, Iraq, peace lovers. Hitler & that kind of pacifists. US govt. does not know what liberating a country means and would require. There are no territorial solutions for Iraq, either. Democracy, parties, voting, representation all delusional and misleading, there, too. Voluntaristic & exterritorial alternative kept out of the public debate by miseducation at every level and misinformation by almost all mass media. ABC mass murder devices still directed against victims of territorial regimes. Delusions de grandeur. Groessenwahn, superiority complex, megalomania. 22.4. 1950: German "Individualist". Rittershausen. B. did not recognise himself in Meulen's photograph. (I can't remember seeing a mirror in his rooms. - J.Z.) Old age symptoms. Speaking of his unfinished manuscript. (I haven't seen it. - Still preserved in Berlin, with Mr. Duewal? - J.Z., 11.6.03.)
III/33 Coffee as a means to regulate digestion to make purgatives unnecessary. 23. 4. 1950: Nine main differences between them enumerated and somewhat detailed.
III/34 Four points on which they agree. Freedom of issue will soon develop the right technique and correct principles for note issues. All should be tried out. Only by bad experiences with unfit methods and principles can the good and right ones be justified by experience. Liberty - the mother, not the daughter of order. Here we agree completely. 24. 4. 1950: Scotch miners visiting Russia. As usual for such visits by unionists, the report on Soviet conditions was favourable. The gullible, Soviet propaganda & their Potemkin villages. (The degrees of freedom of expression & information in the West & of their practical utilisation have still left all too many people ignorant and prejudiced. - J.Z., 11.6.03.)
III/35 Jasper Moon, quoting Adam Smith on "balance of trade". A condition needed where not one can impose crazy theories upon his fellow citizens. "Practical" men, proud of having never anything to do with science or theories. (Actually, they do have theories or hypotheses, too, but only very primitive & flawed ones, never doubted and checked by them. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) Society of Individualists: "The Crisis of Liberty": Could not find individualism in this pamphlet. Gustav Landauer, 12 articles, attached in German and English.
III/37 26. 4. 1950: Aperient of camomile & senna. Moscow prices 1948/49 with indication of wage levels
III/38 Later better comparisons were published on minutes of labour to be spent per standard consumer article in this "workers' paradise" compare with the minute to be spent for the same articles by US workers, supposedly much "exploited" by their "capitalists", also on the "pension-fund-socialism" prevailing in the US. through which the productive people indirectly own most enterprises but, alas, do not properly control them. Ca. 33% of the total food supply in the USSR came from the about 3 % of land still kept in private hands & thus intensely cultivated. Long queues before stores - everywhere a State-socialist "blessing". (How many years earlier would the Soviet system have collapsed if it had not be made somewhat bearable through the remaining free market, the black one, corruption, heavy drinking and huge credits and hand-outs from the West? - J.Z., 11.6.03.) 28. 4. 1950: Can standardised exchange media without cours forcé cause inflation? If it could happen with such monies and if only the prudence of banks could prevent the inflation of bank money, then Free Banking & Mutual Banking would have no chance. People would continue to think State Banking the lesser evil. Meulen's notion of the "fixed price of gold", vs. B.'s conviction that when prices in shops are expressed in gold coins then gold coins have no price. Greene's passage on this, interpreted differently from M.'s view, as purchasing power of gold. Greene & inflation notions. Even as an exclusive currency, but without cours forcé, free bank notes could only themselves be somewhat depreciated - before being totally rejected, but without affecting the price & wage levels, to the extent that these are still expressed in god weight units. Then such a currency would be inflated but not the price level.
III/39 To be distinguished: a) Prices rising from a normal & just level and b) rises from a level which is to be considered as being too low - due to a shortage of currency. Too low prices are also indicated by all too many forced sales and their very low prices. It is impossible to over-issue optional and competing notes and cheques without producing additional sales. Value of a suspect means of payment can be checked by accepting it only through the channel of a bank. Note exchange and clearing between banks of issue. Publicity on note issues. J. E. Horn as an authority on note issues, e.g. in "La libre des Banques", 1866.
III/40 Some other monetary freedom titles in the PEACE PLANS series: Courcelle-Seneuil & Coquelin. Horn proved the technical impossibility of over-issue of notes without cours forcé. Wilson the first champion of the "banking principle. Artificial demand for gold due to legal right for creditors to demand it. Right only to local currency instead, by report of Chinese Minister of Finance about monetary reform, 1931, in Zander's possession.
All complaints about Money, e.g. by Tolstoy, in his book "Money", do exclusively concern that presumed and legalised "right" of creditors to demand gold or other scarce legal tender, whether a debtor can procure it or not, the right to what Greene called "exclusive currency". Also all arguments for communism are 99% taken from that "right". A right to promised values payable only goods and services, which a debtor is able to supply, or suitable assignments to them, is quite a different matter. To confound money and this claim of creditors (workers as wage earners included) to exclusive currency is one of the most fatal errors of mankind. Zander. Monetary Liberty. Freedom option for debtors, with a suitable surcharge.
III/41 B. proposed surcharge of 30 %, not much considering Indian interest rates of 5 % monthly. Laws of Justinian on this, market for commercial bills, Corpus Juris. Thus the debtor will be in the position of a peasant who pays his credit not in money but in agricultural products. (Seeing that his sales prices are low compared with the retail prices for his goods, the creditor so satisfied has another large profit opportunity - if he markets that claim against his debtor properly. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) This method was invented in the Western States of the US in crisis times. In Scotland such notes would have been called "Option Notes". No literature reference on this was available to B. His informant was a worker. Option Notes, in their original and primitive form, formally mitigate the disadvantages of cash payments by delays, upon average notions of "liquidity". Replacing them and other notes by notes based on the principle of "value by acceptance" requires re-thinking for which most people seem not yet mentally prepared. Usual meaning of liquidity as ability to pay in cash. New meaning, under monetary freedom: Ability to pay or clear one's debts with the own standardised and typified assignments upon the own goods and services - and credits, monetising them as far as possible, best in association with other debtors, forming a bank of issue or clearing centre for this purpose. In the reported case the workers so paid went to the saloon keepers and discounted these certificates there. (Which laws or customs or ideas prevented the full and free development of that system? - J.Z., 11.6.03.) Monetary freedom as the most important right of man and citizens. All other rights are worthless or in danger if monetary freedom is not realised and history proves that they do really disappear in times of crises. Free Banking is a very essential element of monetary freedom but not yet monetary freedom itself. Statement on monetary liberty in 9 points.
III/42 Monetary freedom points continued. 29. 4. 1950: Mail received from M.
III/43 Neutrality not a good defence against 2 million Soviet soldiers as tools of the Kremlin. In this situation equivalent Western defence is needed, whether by German soldiers or others does not matter. But every preparation for wars is hampered by errors, prejudices, blunders etc. on both sides. (And such factors are also the major ones causing wars in the first place and preventing liberation, rightful revolutions and revolutionary defence methods. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) No money available for defence? Prussian precedent. (I find organising manpower, ideas, knowledge, institutions, finance, for effective peace preparations to be even more important, but without opposing rightful and voluntary militias but rather proposing them, like B. did, as natural protectors for individual rights everywhere. - Defence & liberation on the model of Sir Thomas More, further developed, in effect: reducing all out wars to rightful police actions. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) Nuclear threat to England. Effect of "defensive" nuclear weapons against invading troops. Those not immediately killed or seriously wounded become walking dead who are fighting-mad & quite fearless. In their few remaining days they will conquer. Certainly, such troops would not defect to the West, even for the greatest and most truthful promises.
III/44 Europe working for the Kremlin. A new 30 year war with similar results: Population reduction to one fifth. Yelland poem on politicians commanding multitudes of zeroes. And how many reflect on how to change that situation? The masses, even of the peace lovers, appeal to the same war criminals and criminal territorial institutions - as if they were or could be their saviours! B. held that Russians were much more interested in their affairs. I have still to find living Russians or writings of Russians confirming that belief. Even now about 30 % are still in sympathy with the Soviet Regime. Has the Welfare State still as many believers in the West? King John of Abyssinia, by his wars reduced, 100 years ago, his male population to 10 %. (That is something territorial governments can do. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) People find no contradiction between reports like: "Big US Wheat Surplus Feared" and Malthusian propaganda articles. Encyclopaedia of the best refutation for popular errors myths and prejudices needed. Interest rates for industrial credits, Japan & Far East. High interest rates are common there - and yet the total interest burden is small compared with analysing other production costs like wages, raw materials, taxes, management costs, sales costs etc.
III/45 Privately secured Free Trade and real defence required, instead of further reliance on "countries" and "governments". Princess Margaret in "Free Trader" No. 253. Reminded him of Queen Christina of Sweden, who ordered the war with Germany to be stopped. Peace of Osnabrueck, 1648. Free Banking the logical consequence of Free Trade. (Not merely a consequence but also a pre-condition. The two are largely identical, like the best forms of capitalism are with the best forms of voluntary socialism. - J.Z.) Bismarck, English royal family & Churchill. Rittershausen, second edition of his "The Other System".
III/46 5. 5. 1950: German translation of a biography of Sir Robert Peel, by G. Kitson Clark. Not bad, but the act of 1844 is mentioned only in 5 lines. (That is already much notice for some writers and some historians. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) Two legal reasons for deferring payments, including clearing. "Glaeubiger-Verzug" (delay of payment caused by the creditor) and payment by ticket money like that used by "Meinl" shops, 1922-1924. Meinl priced its goods in gold weight units and issued and accepted its own "ticket money", also expressed in gold weight units.
(I am still not certain from B.'s letters whether there was only a single Meinl shop or a whole chain of them in Berlin. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) Associations of such shops for the purpose of issue and acceptance of their own notes. Economically, it is still the ticket bearer, who lets the performance provider wait. Economically the bearer is no creditor. Time limit for the validity of such ticket money. The shop association note issue bank lends such ticket money to the shop or discounts its claims with them and is entitled to a commission
III/ 47 Details of such an arrangement. Interest charged might, apart from costs, be distributed among the coop members of the Bank or Mutual Bank. Those repaying faster might, as a reward, get all their interest back. For them Proudhon's ideal might be realised: interest might become zero. Details arose out of long discussions with Zander. All note theories, that of Greene included, were so far based on the principle: "The creditor waits." Capital credits to be granted should be granted by those who provide the substance of the credit - for the same periods as the loans, in a sound average. Money and credit creation out of nothing? Nothing can be created from zero and even God, if the biblical record is true, found a substance, water and, probably, other things, useful for a creation, which existed before he began creating. Note issuing as an element of financing loan term loans requires the details described in the following paragraphs and in his books.
III/48 Long-term loans in which Meinl notes are also used as mediators between those who grant the capital credit with their goods and services and those who receive them and finally pay for them, while paying interest in the meantime. In this process, ticket money does not remain in circulation but has its usual short-term oscillation and shop foundation at every stage of the long-term credit transaction. Always new issues are used for this purpose, as many as are required for the period of the loan. The last note in which the credit was given disappears when the debtor has met all his expenses with the ticket money of the loan. Interest and capital repayments are done with new issues based upon the shop or acceptance foundation with the debtor of the long-term loan must then offer.
Limits for note issues related to shop foundation and compared with capital assets. Notes should only correspond to current payment wants and obligations. Those who provide readiness to accept, in form of goods and services, are not obliged to accept capital securities in payment, as if they were local currency, national currency or their own note issues. No collective responsibility here, either. Limits by the limited quantity of raw materials, labour, transport and energy facilities etc.
III/49 All wisdom does not help if the natural limit is reached. Cash reserves not required. "My emancipation from precious metals is 100 %, yours is much less." (Well, as optional value standards he still favoured them 100 %, while he only rejected them as obligatory means of payment 100 %. While M. rejected them as value standards, also as means of payment, but just to make sure, and build up trust, wanted to offer a gold reserve and gold redemption by degrees, "measured", supposedly, in his more stable and managed paper pound, supposedly the value of a gold weight unit at some particular day of the past. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) 6. 5. 1950: Payments for English imports in commercial bills expressing dollar values. (M. saw many difficulties where not existed in the facts and by nature, except the artificial ones, the barriers, rules, controls and prohibitions provided by governments and based an all too widely accepted prejudices, which M. himself shared, at least in his later decades. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) The Dollar is by now means a gold dollar. Such a bad currency will not always be preferred to well-managed English Pounds. Dunkirk case of one Pound note offered in payment and refused. There was no market there for Pound notes and the official pound value did not correspond to the pound value on the black market. "Towns without a market are commercially isolated, even if daily 100 steamers land there."
III/50 Landauer and Ramus. "Neither you nor I can be impressed by a man, who calls himself an anarchist but does not know what monetary freedom means. Such a man is not better than a State socialist. He is not enough of an anarchist. New Russian Revolution - learn from everybody in the world. Proposals for just or voluntary taxation or contribution schemes should be advanced rather than complaints about present taxation. Paying taxes with notes that have nothing but tax foundation. Taxes should express the percentage of each government expenditure, for information purposes. (Next step: Each taxpayer should get a veto on certain expenditures as far as his contribution is concerned. He should then get either a corresponding tax reduction or become free to make his own allocation of part or of all of his tax contribution. Then expenditures supported only by a small minority should be dropped from the budged. Finally all taxes and state memberships should be quite voluntary. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) 6. 5. 1950: Although Greene was a rare bird, regarding the use of gold as a measure of value he was in accord with the best economists. Whoever prefers silver prices in silver etc. Mutual money issues, influence on purchasing power and prices. No effect according to quoted passage from Greene. (The notes themselves are priced in the measure of all prices - under a general gold standard for consumer goods and prices as value standard - and thus are automatically "regulated" in their quality and quantity by consumer sovereignty & the requirements of trade, the right to refuse and to discount them, the limits of their acceptance foundation, the self-interest of the issuer, who wants to stay in business with his notes and his goods and services and does not want to be charged with fraud and that of their voluntary acceptors. Full publicity and every voluntary note acceptor is also an inspector for the value of such notes, however unofficially, but in the interests of all members of his payment community, not only his own. - J.Z., 11.6.03.)
III/51 "A fall or rise in the price of money, and a rise of fall in the price of all other commodities besides money, are precisely the same economical phenomenon." (Greene) Tucker calls this one of the most important truths in finance. "Mutual money" does not mean "notes issued by a bank run by a committee". Whether its issue and reflux is watched by a committee or a single person is subordinate to the economic and monetary property of the notes. "Fixed paper price of gold"? What Greene really demanded was that the face value of his notes should be in Dollars, but that the notes should not be convertible into metal dollars at the bank. (Here was the main "fixed idea" or mind trap of Meulen regarding money. He never escaped it but merely assumed that others either shared it or ought to. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) Greene: "The bill of a Mutual Bank is a bill of exchange, … payable at sight, but only in services and products." To notes convertible into metal Greene ascribes the power to influence prices, overestimating that influence. (Case of fractionally metal-covered metal certificates, wrongfully trusted for all too long: Expressed in them prices might rise, until they get the discounts or refusals they deserve. Expressed in sound and alternative exchange media they would not. And this competition would also limit the acceptance of such "gold certificates". No business secrets regarding note issues! Then "Goldbugs" and their enemies and competitors might together point out, fast, the flaw in such notes and thus achieve their deserved discount or refusal. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) Discount of Greene's notes on the Bullion market. (To shortly and optimally express all the facts, factors, ideas and theories involved, or arrive at it gradually, an extensive alphabetical compilation of notes, observations, definitions, explanations etc. of all relevant terms and relationships should be compiled and gradually more and more improved, into a handbook on monetary freedom. Even very ideas-rich letters cannot sufficiently describe and interrelate all aspects. Far less can summaries of segments of such letters. Anyhow, that's my excuse for the length of some of my "summaries" and additional comments. - Comments upon comments, upon comments, in no particular order, are just not serviceable enough. - J.Z., 11.6.03.
III/52 Meulen's "invariable standard of value" was quite unknown at the time of Greene. It is still and not yet widely discussed. It may be better than the 1913 method of pricing commodities in gold coins. This supposition should be investigated. But even if you consider gold coins as a bad and unstable value standard, it is a possible and optional one. Americans called Irving Fisher's Dollar a "rubber dollar". Gold coins did their work as value standards for centuries, so well that people free to do so did always return to them, if not prevented by harsh punishments. Not the gold appreciates but the desire to use it or possess it. Issue check by clearing. In the past this was understood to require, ultimately, gold redemptionism. Suffolk System. Note clearing at Edinburgh etc. "A mutual bank does not possess cash reserves. Greene: "… they have not metallic capital, and never pretend to pay specie for their bills…" - Meulen had another kind of clearing in mind, a literal exchange of "stray" notes that were concentrating in the Clearing House. Over-issued notes would arrive there in abundance and the issuer of them would not have enough notes of others to exchange all of them. Horn demanded convertibility - but also abolition of State supervision. Meulen demanded cash reserve. He knew Wesslau personally. Also Ramus and Tucker.
III/53 7. 5. 1950: King-Hall on the revolution in Asia. The West educates many young and bright Asians - and then they return - only to be discriminated against there, by the colonial masters, thus driving them into opposition. Provision of employment for them would have been easy, with good will, even without monetary freedom, for they had an education rare in their countries. Communism or State Socialism always offers them jobs, even if only lowly paid ones. Percentage of National Income spent for military purposes.
III/54 Governments can no longer defend the liberties of people. What they know and do is restrict them. It's time for private associations, sincerely interested in their own liberty, to preserve it and to do what territorial governments are unable to do. Beginnings by a "miracle", namely two people get together and talk about this problem. UNO Constitution. It must be replaced private Federations, Leagues etc. Mathematical "method of limits" applied to the problem by B. (But, alas, not clearly enough for me. - J.Z.)
III/55 Nations, governments, parties, representation. My 2 peace books, now online, largely express B.'s ideas on the subject. "What the World wants." (? Name 10 who do!) A Union of subjects rather than governments. (Rather of volunteers, who strive only for exterritorial autonomy for their communities. - J.Z.) Replacing the old territorial principle by a new one: The principle of personal associations and personal laws. In Germany proposed by e.g. Fichte & Stirner. 1000 years ago well known and applied. Switzerland still calls itself an "oath-community". Compare: "Panarchism" & "Panarchy". A banker on inflation, production and credit. Even he had no longer the right terms and thus not the right ideas on the subject. Gold standard in the meaning of Jevons or one of his great contemporaries. Now forgotten or ignored. In letter of 7.4.1950 B. tried to define the notion by 8 possibilities, hoping the list was already complete. M. & his opponents consider only one aspect of the gold standard system: The legal claim of note holders to gold coins from the bank, which is a specific case of the general bad principle: "Creditors are entitled to gold coins when their claims become due." The still more general problem is that of awarding a title to an "exclusive currency" to all kinds of creditors. Not only England was a gold standard country before 1914. Bank Rate and losses from it. High interest asked for by Banks will have a different effect once the Banks have to operate on the Free Banking Principle. Others will offer their services more cheaply, if they can.
III/56 "Drain of gold" would not occur without this artificial "right" of creditors. And even if it did, it would not matter. People who really want gold could, under freedom, always go to a free gold market and there test their supposedly as good as gold exchange media and most issuers would strive to keep them at par there, not only in their bank and among their debtors. Right to local currency or clearing up to the agreed gold-weight values, rather than right to metallic gold directly from the issuer or from the debtor. Once this is realised somewhere, it would tend to spread rapidly. Pricing of commodities in gold weight units is the most important and most suppressed factor. This suppression is just one aspect of most legal tender laws that enforce acceptance and value for an exclusive paper money and its exclusive paper standard. Fiat money issue and inflation. (Watching them isn't made easy. I haven't seen a year by year survey of the growing circulation of paper money e.g. in England, Germany, Australia and USA for all too many years. Who publishes such surveys regularly and relates them to prices, populations, productivity, government spending, the total tax take and, naturally, the yearly price level? Out of sight out of mind! - J.Z., 11.6.03.) Popular & academic opinion on "causes" of the Great German Inflation. B's contempt for most university economists dates from that time.
III/57 Pride, self-respect, morality, certainty and Kant. Diminution of Christendom from another side: India and China became powers. India might come to impose upon South African white the same race laws with they (well, some or all too many of them - J.Z.) had imposed upon Negroes and coloured people. China may one day compel white nations to repeal their immigration laws. (I would put "China", "white", "nations" and "their" into quotation marks, perhaps even "laws". - Too many of the commonly used terms are misleading. Turks, Allah & God. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) In 500 years the Christians may be reduced to a little sect, as now the Parsi, one so powerful in old Persia. The military strength of "Christians" has contributed very much to their rule over the world. "Conversion of wealth into capital." - "In my books I described a possibility to transform unsaleable goods, in times of a crisis, into capital that can be lent out on long-terms and that with the aid of private note-issuing.
Another Malthusian false assumption: "as population increases, the supply of good agricultural areas diminishes." The notion of "good agricultural area" is variable. Even China is an instance for this. For each seemingly congested district the most important problem is: How can we sell the crop. Obviously, there exists an optimum. Erosion is often diminished in the most simple, cheapest and effective way by populating the exposed district. Pearl S. Buck's reports on China very inconvenient for Malthusians. Not lack of food but of transport facilities its major problem. Thus hunger in some districts while in others surplus food is fed to animals.
III/58 Possible population of Earth. Production and prices of gold. Capital formation & long-term loans directly in notes. Note-Issuing Private Banks & Public Banks, in Germany 1876, table.
III/59 How different would history have run if these banks had been really free banks and had made full use of their monetary freedom options. (Central Banks, or, rather, their leaders, now play a similar role in the economy which Popes once played in secular matters. B. often called the "monetary experts" and officials the high priests of the popular religion on money. - J.Z., 11.6.03.) Adam Smith, David Hume & Murray N. Rothbard asserted that under Free Trade a lack of currency was impossible. They assumed that the price level would fast enough adapt to any quantity of exchange media. Primitive notions have often a much wider appeal than correct ideas and sound observations.
III/60 Metallic currencies, for centuries, never quite succeeded in replacing all barter by monetary exchanges, even in the most advanced economies. Thus we got thousands of emergency money issues for centuries. Also extensive clearing and other non-cash payment attempts and practices. All still more or less flawed & tried to metal redemption notions or those of exclusive currencies. If these great economists would have been in the right, then all note-issuing would have been unnecessary, as far as the supply of the people with currency is concerned. But they were, nevertheless, friends of note-issuing banks, because they assumed them as institutions to improve the supply of credit. (B. didn't & I could not say that with confidence on M. N. Rothbard.) Laws and theories still consider the amount of outstanding notes as a debt of the issuing bank or a loan raised from the public or even a mere "fiat" money. Two conclusions possible: If currency always exists and is sufficient, then this applies also to credit. Credit banks should give credits only in cash, in metal, not in notes. The other is: Give up that false opinion that currency is always available for normal business. One gap in currency supply is described here by B. It was also described by Jefferson in a letter to Gallatin, in 1802. Quoted here. J. included "National Bills" with currency. That was not consistent. He also wrote to Mr. T. Cooper, in 1814 against this "banking mania", for "total prohibition of all private notes" and for "the necessary emissions of public money in circulating size, this bottomed on normal taxes, redeemable annually, as this special tax comes in."
III/61 Jefferson quote continued. (Alas it is incomplete & I could not fully restore it. - J.Z.) Swiss Care Parcel Certificates, redeemable in a Central Warehouse for Swiss Care Goods, is printed, in three languages: Warengutschein, Bon pour marchandises, Voucher for goods. Goods warrants may be a better term - until a still better one is found. Compared with them, M.'s notes are mortgage bonds or interest-free bills of exchange or interest-free promissory notes. Thus they contain the element "credit", which vouchers do not contain. Tax foundation money based on due taxes does not contain the element "credit". It was inconsistent of him to propose it while believing that metal currency can never be in short supply. Steuart, Smith, Roscher and many named by Roscher, wrote on tax foundation money. But they failed to draw the right conclusions from their observations and did not apply the principle involved to the private sphere.
III/62 Loans with the aid of notes or goods warrants. All the now necessary precautions were previously often ignored. They got away with this in deflationary times. The issue was therefore always below the amount of exchange media which were really wanted in a country. (Apart from some forced currency issues like the Assignats.) Therefore even the interest-free promissory notes got an additional value nearly equal to the missing interest, so that the notes circulated at par. The notes were largely confined to payments among merchants, since most were in large denominations, not suitable for wage payments. Today merchants largely clear and notes will be needed mainly for wages and retail trade. The old redemption principle also allowed a greater liberality in long-term credits. Once this principle is discarded, the old liberality with long-term loans is no longer economically possible. (Instead, short-term deposits are abused for this purpose or the banks simply assume that the central bank will bail them out with its note-printing press. - J.Z., 11.6.03.)
III/63) Blessing of newly printed notes by high official of the Roman Catholic Church in Spain. As if e.g., blessed bridges had less accidents and did not collapse as frequently as the unblessed ones. Protection for Egg producers.
13. 5. 1950: 9th monetary liberty: "The liberty to establish money accounts with any person, institution or bank ad libitum and to dispose of these accounts freely, according to agreed-upon conditions." - In April 1950 5,600 refugees from East Germany begged for admission to the Western Zone & 4, 663 were sent back. The cruelty involved makes these Western officials no better than those in the East. These officials should be deported to East Germany, instead and should have to endure there what these sent-back refugees must endure there.
III/64 Free Banking would enable us to welcome every refugee able to work as a helper. But refugees must be helped, quite independent of the situation at the labour market. Article by Ritchie Calder, Hannibal and his Elephants, points out areas in antiquity, populated by hundreds of millions (dozens? J.Z.), are now deserts. Erosion? Salination? Persians knew the art of transforming deserts fertile land. They use it when a government governs rather than plunders. It requires a dense population. 19. 5. 1950: Esperanto. Cash reserves & bankers. UNO. Cases where wars are begun by subordinates must be taken into consideration.
III/65 Dr. Jameson & John Brown cases. Use of the atom-bomb-monopoly against the Kremlin? (Each such "weapons" would have killed more victims than victimisers. - J.Z. 12.6.03.) Gold standard. Jevons on Mint. Central Banks & gold purchases. Reichsbank redemption. German objections against private note issues. Notes were considered as loans granted by the note bearers and no one has the right to take a loan from persons who are not willing to grant the loans. Upon reply that a the German notes had no cours forcé they said: In practice the right to refuse them is never used. Why should it be when the notes are kept at par? But the note issue would raise interest-free loans, a privilege to be granted only to the State. - If that were possible, shouldn't that option be extended to everybody? Etc., on redemptionism. Taxes on note issues. For decades the smallest Reichsbank note was 100 marks. Why the Reichsbank (Prussian Bank) could buy the note-issue right from most private banks. It had made it largely unprofitable. The field for the issue of smaller notes was legally closed.
III/67 Theorists followed Adam Smith's doctrine that small notes would drive precious metal from the circulation.
As real economists they should have welcomed such cheaper exchange media! Greene, value & purchasing power. 26. 5. 1950: Devaluation to promote exports, instead of introducing Free Banking and freely floating exchange rates. Malthusianism & race. China.
III/68 Japan, thought police & spies: American occupation led to a mental liberation. But continuance of central banking could lead to a restoration of the old excess statism, lastly but a consequence of monetary centralism. Overlooked by Spencer? No, he advocated Free Banking at least on the Scotch model. Two world wars fought under monetary despotism. Soviet & Chinese as well as Nazi totalitarianism arose under it. Malthusianism, China & Adam Smith. Housing shortage in Paris: No one would invest in housing on a Franc basis, after so many devaluations. And yet no one demands a stable currency. They should for price & rent controls instead, although the government now realises that they are beyond its powers. Free market in educational services. Libertarian publishing & library. World Library in Alexandria. No copyrights.
III/69 6. 5. 1950 to Mr. Robert Picard, on aggression, Swiss defence only against governments, not soldiers and citizens, desertion, separate peace, POW treatment, asylum for all victims of dictatorships, Hague Conventions, free migration, support of liberated victims of regimes, payment for weapons they bring with them, rewards to acts against a despotic regime, alliance with the suppressed people, separate peace treaty with them.
III/70 Rightful war aims: No conquests or reparation demands from innocents. No meddling except dictatorial aspirations will be resisted. War criminals will be held responsible. Switzerland as refuge. Work for all easy via free banking. German original appended on following pages. B. advocated a kind of military jiu jitsu, to turn the seeming military strength of a despotic regime against it. Practical details are very important. But there is little interest in this kind of peace promotion.
III/72 9. 6. 1950: Gifts, presents and poisons.
III/ 73 Development of insurance terms and practices. How Roman Law was hated among German tribes. Certain words were long "taboo". From the report on such superstitions in the Bible, and it considered as "the word of God", one can only conclude that even "God" was, to a large extent, superstitious. Poisoning in Germany by women. An early form of "women's lib" against their brutal treatment? Arab Bedouins, Mohammed, torture only to get gold & silver.
III/74 Iceland pretty wealthy through Free Trade. By Free Trade Burma's rice fields "belong" to England, Germany etc. Without Free Trade Spanish colonies were poor countries. But at that time they produced more gold and silver than any other country. Gold does not enrich. Free enterprise and free exchange do. UNO. Does it still exist? Only as a corpse, kept "alive" via tax subsidies. Another kind of league needed. But it would need a program & practically no one is interested in that. The brain dead rule the world and are ruled by it. No way out left, so far, for the others. All fear of national trade competition could be removed by the Milhaud plan on international clearing and clearing certificates. Anti-cartel legislation. Free competition to supply industry with capital, agreed, but there is no agreement on the means to be used to achieve that. Liberty to experiment would provide the best system soon and discard the others. Agreement on that liberty.
III/75 14. 6. 1950: Israel, Jews, Community Centres with voluntary communism. Connection of "exclusive currency" with communist theory and practice. Culture, mentality & scarcity of money. Slave armies. Aside such communistic spheres there were some in which people were able to pay and were personally free. Soviet "Combines". Feudal system probably arose of the lack of currency after the fall of the Roman Empire. Where currency was introduced serfs often bought their freedom. Where it was lacking they often revolted and established free towns. Jews, very cultured people, but unable to conceive monetary liberty, established voluntary Community Centres, which cannot produce slavery, because members are free to leave them. The influence of currency supply on history is insufficiently investigated, as is the currency supply itself. Captains of industry. Inflation & forced currency. Aristocracy of economics no longer exists. (Did it really ever exist? A few exceptional persons do not yet constitute a ruling aristocracy and come to the top much more rarely than the scum does. - J.Z., 12.6.03.)
III/76 Modern "leadership" without a program. Just like their voters full of popular prejudices. Technology and processes for enlightenment. The supposed "free market for ideas" must be turned into a real one, supplemented by freedom and tolerance for all tolerant actions and experiments of volunteers. The State has no right to intrude services upon those able and willing to render them for themselves. After 300 years of political economy they still don't know that they are able to do so. Marriage and divorce law reform. Slavery outlawed under Prussian civil Law of 1794. Indian women, situation bad after divorce. Probably in China, too. Manners should become like in Burma, where every woman may find a living by a little trade. H. Fielding Hall, "The Soul of a People", 1898 ff on this. China still under-populated. But land development can't be achieved on the basis of inflated paper money.
III/77 What China needs … Only 1/7th of the land which could be cultivated is cultivated. China needs to encourage more birth, rather than preventing them. Ireland now one of the richest countries? Before the French Revolution, with the same population, it was one of the poorest. China's problems to be solved by Free Banking, not by Malthusianism. Great men, such as great scientists, poets etc., only possible in a great population. Qualities required of money reformers. Do more than 10% possess them? Among 1000 million adult men there is one money reformer, who deserves that name. (How can the knowledge of those few be fully combined and spread? Technically that is now possible. - J.Z., 12.6.03.)
III/78 Several kinds of gold standard. Meulen's is the Ricardo type. If that had been the only possible one than the Romans, at the time of the emperors and, especially, after Constantine, were not on a gold standard. They had no banks whose paper would be converted into gold. Naples, Bremen & Prussia on gold coin standard. Greene-Tucker system & that of Four Bills. Gold-accounting standard. Hamburg Mark Banko. The real value standard is the one in which prices are expressed. Inflation. 16. 6. 1950:
III/79 Refugees sent back to East Germany. Inhumanity of that measure. Jobs are there, but under monetary despotism they cannot be freely financed. What was their fate afterwards? (J.Z. on present concentration camps for illegal immigrants in Australia. Only those should be deported who orders and enforced this treatment for these victims.) Malthusianism & Hunger. Lack of capital prevents peasants from using more than primitive tools and equipment. Capital unobtainable under inflated paper currencies. (However, black market trading during inflations made peasants in Germany relatively well off. - J.Z., 12.6.03.) Indian capital and interest rate position.
III/80 17. 6. 1950: Malthusianism & war. Was even one war mainly caused through "population pressure"? 100 years ago, when Africa's population was less than half of the present, its natives were in continuous warfare. Did these wars improve their situation? Walker's "Insurance Cyclopedia" listed also all known famines. The most terrible ones occurred under Charles "the Great". One of the causes was lack of transport facilities But overpopulation was then certainly not the cause. Buffon on the limits of all quantities of matter and force, even regarding the dimensions of plants and animals and populations. Quite striking is the increase of births after wars and famines. Once the normal number is attained the sexual desire diminishes. The West now needs Anti-Malthusianism, Free Trade, Free Banking, a suitable value standard, a better military organisation & more interest in its own affairs. Free Banking vs. Malthus. 21. 6. 1950:
III/81: Chinese successful treatment of POWs and deserters in 1877. In China Mao's method is old hat. Kuropatkin: "Kashgaria", London, 1883. Reprint suggested. 6. 7. 1950: Zander. Soviets blocked water. In Neukoeln, some km from B., 13 schools had to be closed because of this. During their first blockade the Soviets did not block the water.
III/82 B. kept all of M.'s papers and clippings. Refugees from the Eastern Zone. Their treatment confirmed B.'s view that West Germany is not yet in a mental state to govern itself. UNO intervention against its supreme cruelty? If England, in 1914, had adopted war laws as B. suggested in the above letter to Dr. Picard, then soldiers from all parties would have gone over to the English side, at least by 1916-1918. B. advocating larger populations in all cases where peasants find difficulties in selling their products. The production of victuals can easily be increased by capital credits under honest conditions. Malthusianism, Catholic processions birth control, human sacrifices. Malthusians tend to ignore all real causes and solutions. Misery of small populations.
III/83 More talents among larger populations. More births as the most effective means for social & economic betterment. Ancient mentality of self-castration among the priests of Cybele, introduced into Christianity and there propagated by the priest Malthus. Malthusianism & Christianity in harmony. As long as this faith is taken serious, Malthusianism will be taken serious, too. Edmund Keinschmidt, 1928 travel book, on Japan and its seeming overpopulation, describes the real causes of its poverty. Even reduction of Japan's population would not help - as long as the old system of leases is retained.
III/84 If peasants are compelled to cede all production beyond a minimum standard of living then the density of population can be as low as in the Sahara and the peasants will still remain poor and hungry. To such peasants even the Communist "program" sounded attractive. "Lebensraum" claim in Germany & of Nazis. What Germany needs is Free Trade in victuals. Protectionism favoured war in two ways described. Nazis: Some people really believe in their nonsense! Mobilisation took place in general consternation & silence. But until then the "Lebensraum" slogan was good propaganda for the Nazis. Malthus did not distinguish distress caused by too much food from a distress caused by lack of victuals. Gold standard. Older English writers admitted its possibility without paper money. Modern ones believe it to be a feature of "sound" paper money. India's high and normal interest rates, in different spheres.
III/85 Lending to impoverished peasants whose sales were not assured, was a risky business, just like lending money to gamblers. Pride of Brahmins may also have been involved, towards low class Indians. Scarcity of coins & other ready cash - wasteful use of precious medals for jewellery rather than coins to multiply exchanges. Instances of money lenders in Europe. Under certain conditions - rapid daily turnover, a huge interest rate is still quite bearable. 7. 7. 1950: Martial spirit p until the first grenade shell whistles. James II of England was at last left by his soldiers. Soldier's were abused by governments at all times. (They ought to take their fate into their own hands & so should civilians. - J.Z., 12.6.03.) Trygve Lie (UN) should publish a land reform program. Otherwise Mao will win. Attacking Chinese soldiers in Korean War strongly under the influence of drugs, according to an Australian soldier.
III/86 Most UN soldiers there just ducked into their fox holes and fired into the air! Effect on fighting morale once atrocities by the other side are seen. Why did Napoleon I get obedient soldiers for many years? The soldiers were peasants and the Royals had proclaimed that the old feudal land system would be restored by them. To that extent his soldiers just defended their property. (Officers were largely elected. Anyone could rise in rank. The old slogan of the Revolution: War to the palaces but peace to the cottages, was not quite forgotten yet or turned, too obviously, into its opposite. N. had provided a stable currency and a relatively attractive civil code. But at last it became clear that Frenchmen did not want to be soldiers forever, of glory & plunder, in attempts to conquer the world, or live under censorship & secret police powers. - J.Z., 12.6.03.) 9. 7. 1950: Skilled workers defecting to the East? At least that regime is prepared to accept them. Refugees, mentality & abilities or disabilities.
III/87 "Free Trader". Are they 100 % Free Traders, as long as they don't advocate Free Trade in means of payment? The term "effective demand". Monetary vs. barter economy.
III/88 Form and foundation of liquidity is very important. Two steps towards it. 1.) The offered means of exchange are continuously inspected and evaluated by a free market. 2.) The order or commitment system. - Existing exchange media must be supplemented by "purchasing certificates". Wrong assumption that the correct theory of "effective demand" has already been found. Obligations to buy by commitments, expressed in article by Wasserrab on commercial crises, in first supplement, 1890/91 to the 4th ed. of "Meyer's Konversations-Lexikon". W. quoted. The absolute liberty of buying, without regard to production, compared with the freedom or whim of savages. (Compare the modern JIT [Just In Time) system of ordering supplies for current production. It saves the producer capital and commits him to purchases from suppliers for an agreed-upon period. - J.Z., 12.6.03.) Sound markets in futures a step in this direction. Paris pre WW II journal "Plans". (Neither B. nor I ever saw a copy of it. - J.Z., 12.6.03.)
III/89 Probably linked to Ideas Archive project of my father, K. H. Zube. Certainly to my "Peace Plans". Stress on synthesis or new ideas rather than on mere analysis. Stephen King-Hall & monetary state of the world. Government interference produces low wages. Low wages produce a low output. Even poor countries have surprise attack strength. (The N. Korean regime may rely on that now. - J.Z., 12.6.03.) Military strength through reduction of production for private purposes.
III/90 Lord Elgin's 1860 destruction of Peking's "Summer-Palace". Not forgotten and forgiven even now. Effect of destruction of Korean towns by air raids, simply because they were occupied by communist troops. So begins the "liberation" of the Asians from Communism! Always the same old "principle": Collective responsibility. The subdued is to suffer for the actions of the oppressor! (When will enough people cease to be such savages? - J.Z., 12.6.03.) 22. 7. 1950: Sufficient publicity on difference between "news" in East and West. Ending collective responsibility practices would make good propaganda for the West & increase its military strength, while weakening that of its opponents. Soviet air raid policy was more rightful and sensible, with two exceptions. Castille & Gold Rule Banker. Sunset Bank.
III/91 Personal Finance Assn. in US. German savings institution, also chained by antiquated legislation. Men only 80 % rascals. Effect of interest rates is usually overestimated. Sunset Bank offered youthful farmers loans without interest. This is a very bad principle & practice. Christian philanthropy isn't optimal economics. Christian charity vs. scientific charity.
III/92: Time deposits (fixed deposits) are an invention to be compared to atomic bombs. (A time bomb only when their timing is not sufficiently related to the timing of bank loans! - J.Z., 12.6.03.) Their role in the Great Depression & in the subsequent events. Castille's Sunset Bank practice. Californian law of Building & Loan Associations, the best in its sphere. Customers wanting to withdraw and cannot be satisfied immediately do simply give notice, the notices are listed and their deposits are paid out in the sequence of the list. What they still lacked was standardised certificates based on the acceptance principle. C. J. Voskamp, "Zerstoerende und aufbauende Maechte in China", undated, on conditions of peasants in China & extremely high rents and interest rates there, causing poverty. Even with a very small population China would be impoverished under such conditions. But Malthusians assert: All that does not matter! Would Malthus himself have been as insensible? Korea & Japan. Hippolyte Taine, in his "Origines de la France Contemporaire" reports similar conditions in pre-revolutionary France.
III/93 Korea. Did Americans reform conditions there or left them as tinder waiting for the first match? B. thought it prudent to advocate larger population on the chance that more Free Bankers will be born, Free Banking being the basis of future culture, life and liberty and only Free Banking. (Here one should remember Bastiat's observation: "Society is exchange" and also the very meaning of the term "exchange medium", in order not to consider this remark to be a typical B. exaggeration, just to stress a point. - I asked him once, whether he had enough cups for his few guests. His reply: I have millions of cups in my cupboard! - Sometimes he gave the impression of having millions of facts, ideas and references in his head, even while he complained about a bad memory. - J.Z., 12. 6. 03.) There are other advantages of large populations, e.g., for the provision of transport facilities for Free Trade. American Banking conditions and beliefs 40 years ago. They were relatively free and thought to be quite free, at least according to the prevailing prejudices. Greene demanded not Free Banking - Freedom in Banking existed - but Mutual Banks, i.e., banks which replace capital by a mutual obligation of members to accept their notes at par. Green was quite near to the truth. What he did not see was: This obligation can be imposed only upon debtors. Once this is agreed, then the restriction to mutuality is no longer necessary.
III/94 Obligation of buyers to buy. Order or commitment system. Similar non-comprehension as among pacifists. But a new aristocracy will arise. And they will practically demonstrate their liberties and effectively defend their right to do so. Russian tanks. One result of discriminating, in 1945, against German scientists and technicians. (Only very few and selected specialists were welcomed in the West. Probably many more secret service men than members of useful professions. The Soviets were ready to exploit any skill, even that of Nazis. - J.Z., 12.6.03.)
Air raids against civilians and the fury they aroused. Compare the fury aroused in England after the destruction of Coventry. Even the Nazis were seen as the lesser evil! A cosmopolitan like B. kept his mouth shut. During WW II millions of Chinese came to Soviet Russia to work in its ammunition factories. Bad as conditions were under this regime, they were better than the Chinese conditions at the time. B. supplied some details.
III/95 Thus almost every Chinese who returned became a propagandist for the Soviets. Times of 18. 4. 50 on race. "I know that in the USA the Negroes prefer banks conducted by whites and are very right to do so. But if they visit a theatre, the prefer as keeper of the wardrobe a Negro. The latter never errs in returning their clothing." At railways Negroes are preferred for many jobs. The Negro race seems to be in regress since about 1000 years. The first Portuguese discoverers met powerful and well met empires. The now living race was unable to defend itself against a few Arabian slavers. Many scientists believe that the Egyptian culture has been a Negro culture. Rothbard, like all American writers for decades, does not distinguish paper money with cours forcé from paper money without cours forcé, although the former means State interference. Inflation requires cours forcé and is not synonymous with rising prices. M. notes cannot cause an inflation, even if their issuers were firmly determined to cause one. In case of over-issue the notes would get a discount and almost everybody would then refuse to accept them. A few days later they would have disappeared, together with their discount. Rothbard does not consider this possibility, although American monetary history offers numerous examples. His fixed idea was 100 % gold redemptionism. Link between exclusive currency and inflation, if all goods, services and debts are priced in it. That, too, gives a currency a forced value and a forced acceptance. At least on the open market it leaves no legal and sound alternative. What will happen if all pricing can freely be done in two ways, side by side: Prices in a government paper money and prices in a preferred alternative and sound currency. It would not take much intelligence to draw this sound conclusion from the difference: The prices are not really inflated, reckoned in a sound value standard, but the government paper money is depreciated. Precisely because of this the inflating governments would attempt to suppress such pricing.
III/96 Did Asian gold after the victory over Macedonia and Egypt really raise the price level of ancient Rome? Concerning the effect of influx of precious metal B. wrote to M. before. Here he says that Bonn and Wieser proved it long before him. Each can compare for himself the annual gold production since 1492 with the annual population involved with that production, which from 1492 to 1592 was about 100 million. The quantity per capita is obviously too small to be able to exercise a significant economic effect. Error of Rothbard concerning the time preference. A story on an anti-trees religion arising among Negroes and the spread of a pro-trees religion invented and spread as a counter-measure. True or just a nice story on what motivates some people?
III/97 Bedouins in Palestine knew of a method to store four for 10 years in desert caves. They even increased its market value thereby. A hint worth checking out? Really no deterioration? Wouldn't storing the complete grains be easier? The dishonest practices of central banks spread dishonesty among debtors. Interest as the creditor's share in the product which the debtor gets with the help of the borrowed capital. The debtor may gain 30 % p.a. Roman gold standard, as described in F. Hultsch, "Griechische und roemische Metrologie". Rothbard does not see that a bank of issue, to maintain parity of its notes with gold coins, does not need a store of gold coins but only a continuous connection with a free bullion market. That is one of the greatest discoveries in economics, and it seems the honour of this discovery belongs to W. B. Greene. M. rejected that kind of parity.
III/98 If the bank does not promise to pay in full in gold, then it cannot become bankrupt for this reason, when unable to convert its notes into gold. Rothbard discusses none of the alternatives. Rothbard speaks of "soft money fallacies of Proudhon". That is unjust towards P. Rothbard could not quote a passage from P. which makes it probably that P. rejected gold as a measure of value. Other major flaws of Rothbard's monetary views. (I do not want to quote them here in full. Look them up! They are very important flaws, especially for a radical libertarian like him. - J.Z., 12.6.03.) Special journals like the French "Plans" will be devoted to monetary freedom aspects. Nobody considers that the terrors of deflation are much greater. Inflation deprives the old and the receivers of pensions. But deflation deprives the whole people. Rothbard does not consider the best way to avoid deflation and inflation. Mises: While his book offers many interesting details about the history of means of payment, he has not the least notion of self-help against monetary blunders of an ignorant government. (I do not agree with this evaluation. He favoured somewhat free banking but not quite FREE banking.
III/99 Is it still your opinion that the only way to protect a country's gold is: prohibiting gold coins as a measure of value and means of payment? 28. 7. 1950: A conversion to honest money. What Americans called, 150 years ago: "the right of banking", the right of every honest citizen to issue standardised notes in small fractions, without cours forcé of course. At that time it was considered as founded on Common Law. Source: Prof. Bullock, Monetary History of the US, 1912. (I microfiched the 1900 edition in PEACE PLANS 373-375. - J.Z.) Irrigation plan for Swazi-Territory. They whole of Africa could be turned into fertile land. B. mentions here only water and men as lacking. Perhaps he presumed that capital could be gained for this under favourable conditions & that if monetary freedom were introduce the additional produce could also be sold. Schopenhauer's Eristische Dialektik points out 37 different discussion tricks one ought to know, to oppose them properly. (Fiched in PEACE PLANS in English & in German.) While generally it is more profitable to ameliorate land already under the plough than to transform deserts into arable land (I republished 2 rare books and wrote one article on the latter option & its finance. - J.Z.), sometimes, as in many parts of Africa, the cost of transforming a desert into arable land is so small that the yield can be 100 % and more p.a.
III/100 Carlyle quote against Malthusianism. Carlyle was right on every point. At least one can say about the Soviets that they were not Malthusians. Law of Diminishing Returns. Also misunderstood by Malthusians.
III/101 Kropotkin. Optimum population. Vegetarianism. Berlin needs monetary independence. (What Berliners & other Europeans got instead is a single Central Bank for most of Europe. The wrongs and damages caused by it will only be exceeded by those of the Indian & Chinese central banks! The consequences of German central banking seem already forgotten or most people simply never became sufficiently aware of them! - J.Z., 12.6.03.) "Capitalism means the excluding of men from a share in the earth, who do not possess capital." (I disagree with that definition. A man's life-long labour ability constitutes also an enormous capital. Its owner ought to utilise it property in a capitalistic or voluntary socialistic way, as B. suggested elsewhere. Even now he benefits greatly from the capital of others, while he has not yet sufficiently mobilised his own. - J.Z., 12.6.03.)
III/102 Anti-Monopolism might be a better word for the ideal than is "Capitalism". King-Hall favours the battlefield of ideas against communism - but never takes a stand for monetary freedom. Anti-communism without it is not sufficiently effective. Sympathy with "honest money" is not enough. One must get quite clear notions on it.
Volunteer militias of England in 1848. Now a new militia is needed, locally and internationally. The local ones should federate like the Maquis members did in France, the "Geusen" in the Netherlands, the "Sons of the red spears" in China. The Supranational Militia should have its centre in London. A finance plan must be worked out for it. The German militia would or should being freedom from all the crazy laws which suppress freedom in the choice of value standards. The governmental defence monopoly is to be broken. Was there ever an invasion by Russian volunteer forces? Smaller States? Smaller groups have rights, too. States are institutions of a doubtful military value. Clemenceau said that wars are too important to be entrusted to generals. He went so far as to think that not only States but generals, too, are of doubtful military value. Full mobilisation? (By themselves, in the defence of their rights, and with quite rightful war and peace aims, against real threat to them, and with quite rightful arms and warfare or liberation methods. Maybe B. wanted to lead M. only gradually towards alternative defence and liberation ideas. - J.Z., 12.6.03.)
III/103 German voluntary militias of 1812/13. "Landsturm" (& various "Freikorps". - J.Z.) First action of the militia, to publish a militia law similar to the articles B. proposed in his letter to Dr. Picard. 31. 7. 1950: Gold & Silver production 1493 - 1600. The total addition for those involved was only about 27.4 grams per head, close to one ounce. Such a small amount could not have caused the price revolution. Moreover, much went to the Orient for luxuries, to churches & rich people for ornaments. Much was lost by shipwrecks or in buried treasures. And that one ounce contribution was spread over more than a century!
III/104 Adam Smith on price rises in England, general not before 1570, although in this year the mines of Potosi had been known for 20 years. Nevertheless he adhered to the general opinion that the additional production of rare metals was to blame. Real reasons were probably quite different. One factor was the replacement of payments in kind by payments in money. Tax payments in produce vs. tax payments in money, in Persia. Similar conditions in Europe. Another cause was the export of corn to northern countries, in exchange for fish, wood, fat etc. Before that these products were of little value. Roscher pointed out the effects, e.g. of the invention of the salting of herrings. Another factor: Expansion of clearing. It helped to reduce the deflationary effect of the all too small coin circulation. Increase in armies.
III/105 While there may be objections against a gold coin value standard, to prohibit it would be tyrannical. Gold inflation has not been observed even now. Fort Knox. Jevons recommended a similar standard to that of M., but based on index numbers, for long-term investments. B. adopted the view of Savigny, in his "Obligationenrecht", 1851/53. Laws of monetary despotism in Germany. 1. 8. 1950: Malthusian quotes 1821 figures and complaints that more modern figures would not be available, although e.g. the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1947 offers them. E.g.: World wheat yields by countries, 1930-1934.
III/106 Statesman's Yearbook, 1946 & 1949 offer such figures and also Whitaker's Almanach: Wheat production figures for UK, 1939-1948. Fertility is relative. In very wide ranges fertility is a product no less than wheat. Fertility is mainly a matter of the product's price. B. worked from 1942 to 1945 at the Price Commission, where Hitler, after July 1944 found so many victims.
III/107 Effect of Nazi price controls: Production fell by 1/4 to 1/3. Much land remained uncultivated. Compulsory delivery quotas could not be enforced. Lower productivity in India. Rice yields in Java, Madura & Japan. 2. 8. 1950: Full economic liberation rather than Malthusianism.
III/108 Possible population estimates for Earth vary from 6,000 million to 15,000 million. Malthusianism. There is no substitute for Free Banking. Only Free Banking. That was the standpoint in M.'s Book: "Free Banking". 6. 8. 1950: "We have connected our vital force with the Orion Nebula, which is now becoming the finest Free Banking Centre in the Universe." (Are there really no borders for ideas & life & mental energies? - Do they have a life and even immortality of their own? Do space and time mean nothing to them? B. took some consolation in such notions. - J.Z., 12.6.03.) Under full monetary freedom & Free Trade Germany would not need Marshall Plan Aid and would, as in 1914, be a country in which labour is in short supply and would invite immigrants with job offers.
III/109 Marshall Plan Aid & currency law of 1948. Monetary freedom requires no law but just absence of prohibitions. Free experimentation would do the rest and evaluate the M. and the B. system. The Four bills permit any value standard and the M- system, too. A German "Individualist". Regardless of any money offer, B. could not publish it now. (But he would have extensively contributed, if someone else had established it and opened its pages to him. - J.Z., 12.6.03.) PEACE PLANS, since 1964. Indian capitalists & Indian money lenders & their different interest rates.
III/110 Cheapening of agrarian credits. California vs. India. Finance companies, credit insurance. Freedom for institutions to buy all kinds of credit-insured investments. Also investments with value-preserving clauses. And security from government interventions with funds. But, who cares, now? Time deposits. Russian tanks. Situation of scientists in Germany after the war. The same applies to German officers. Alexander assumes that the North Korean attack plan was drawn up by German officers. They would certainly have preferred to serve in a Western army. But paragraphs prevented that.
III/111 Machiavelli says: Kill a beaten enemy or treat him as your own subject. But if you ill-treat him and let him live, then one day he will conquer you. Rothbard, redemptionism, clearing of notes. Shop foundation notes. Experience would soon teach what is possible and what is not. Tucker & Greene on B.'s side, also the experience in Germany from about 1919 to 1924. Railway money issues or "Oeser-Bons". Meinl, active in Berlin on a large scale. Suffolk system for clearing redemption notes. Woolworth & Coles issues. Zander. Rothbard's statement on time preference. The case that a man likes the apple at once is a special case. That this case, at the present state of society, is the most frequent one, does not turn the single case in to a general case.
III/112 Lastly interest is determined by supply and demand. For many years the demand for capital, to applied to high yield investments, will be greater than the offer. Immense opportunities in agriculture alone. Norris E. Dodd: "In more than half the world the scythe has not yet supplanted the sickle." Derive from that fact what could be invested in agriculture if the same capital would be invested per labourer as in England. Prosperity of bachelors. How prosperous would they be if everyone became one? India's paper rupee and China's paper-yuan are not a seductive basis for value reckoning. Neither are Germany's paper mark and England's managed paper-pound. But if the gold-basis is restored then capital for every practical increase of the population will be raised, at least in some decades. Effect of public old age pensions. Who is paying them for the childless?
III/113 Old age pensions and children as an investment. China. A bachelor in China, in his old age, must become a beggar or a monk. The same mentality prevailed in North America to about 1850, especially in its West. Chinese philosophy on rebellion against tyrants. Free Banking the best means to maintain a population, growing or not. Optimum population. Malthusianism. 13. 8. 1950:
III/114 Kant and thinking together with others. National feelings & taking them into consideration. Mao vs. Chian Kai-Shek & desertion. Transforming every war into a civil war. Revolutionary governments as allies. Montesquieu. Soviets employed this methods as far as they could. (Hardly in their treatment of POW's. - J.Z.) Real masters & winners of this method can only be those who have all rights and liberties on their side.
III/115 Communists. Mazzini: patriotic Internationalism. Bismarck. Switzerland. Rhode Island & Vermont, little autonomous German towns. Exterritorial & voluntary autonomy would bring us closer to the ideals involved. Territorialism. Louis XIX, won wars largely by bribes. Montecucculi. Wallenstein found: No gold can buy real patriots. A book ought to be written: "Nationalism vs. Economic Advantages". Old age insurance. Government meddling led to dependence in old age upon the government.
III/116 Malthusianism: 4 of its false premises. It has the very great advantages to make observations, facts, thinking and experiments quite unnecessary for them. Like some Christians, Communists & Nazis they are only expected to believe. 17. 8. 1950: Equality of rights does not involve equality of capacities. Quote from F. Gregorovius, "Idyllen …", 1856.
III/117 Racial rather than climatic differences. Malthusianism, Free Trade. Political frontiers considered as natural walls. Hitler's racist "logic". Perhaps innate ideas don't exist but innate methods of thinking do. 18. 8. 1950: Del Mar & Roman coins. Gold standard with silver for small change. Japanese & Australian farmers.
III/118 Phrenology, Gall's experience. Voluntary militia, Adam Smith & freedom of speech and press. Gold production, Jevons. Distinction between gold coins convertible into paper and paper convertible into gold. For many centuries paper money was not in use but gold always was, with very few exceptions. Sometimes, in old Egypt, kings declared gold to be a royal monopoly. Compare governmental practices in our lifetimes. Modern governments are not wiser than ancient ones.
III/ 119 Convertibility at the issuer of the paper money or at the bullion market? Paper money convertible only at the bullion market & without cours forcé: The discovery of the Four Bills. Greene & Tucker probably meant the same but did not express it clearly enough. Spencer's idea on the legal possibility to "ignore the State". First step: He who insures himself is not subject to the social insurance laws. The next step would be to provide oneself with employment. Rittershausen. People whose minds are not prepared for such ideas. They are welcome to the rump States that would remain, as their voluntary members and at their own risk and expense. Bribing rulers into such tolerance? (That might be possible for small, poor & underdeveloped States. There refugees might buy their independence gradually, via "protegé-citizenship, later expanded into full exterritorial autonomy, for mutual benefits. A suggestion B. made elsewhere. By their example and free exchanges & contracts they would have so much to offer to native citizens. But the should beware not to purchase all or most land away from them but rather go into partnerships or coops or open coops with them. - J.Z., 13.6.03.) Mohammed's admirable invention of "bought tolerance". "You will not become a true believer? Well - that costs you one gold coin per year and head!" That was excellent. By that invention the ruler become the protectors of tolerance. And those prosecuted in other countries found asylum in Islamic countries. A possible factor in the military superiority of Turkey until about 1700. German students. (Eagerness to learn? (I know of an Australian libertarian academic lecturer who gave up this job in disgust because none of his students showed enough intellectual curiosity & willingness to learn, by his standards. How many students were sufficiently influenced by Rittershausen? Heinrich von Kleist.
III/120 Bombardment of Korea. (By now it has led to a despotic Korean govt. armed with nuclear weapons & IBMs. Actions have consequences and not always rational ones. - J.Z., 13.6.03.) A Martian view of Earth politics.
South Africa & Hitlerism. An anti-white racism is bred there and suspicion towards democracy. Malan. Zander. Taxation, devaluation, experts, defence. (The best defence consists in making defence unnecessary because aggression does no longer become possible for a government. - J.Z., 13.6.03.)
III/121 Militia idea & practice. 18. 8. 1950: Malthusianism, Sir John Orr. Blockade & Berlin mail practices.
III/122 23. 8. 1950: Hire purchase business inflationary? When people expect inflation they buy on terms hoping to win from it. Gold mining, number of employees. Strabo on silver mines of New Cartago. For shareholders it is wise to sell if daily wages are pretty equal to daily output. Without supplying the number of workers the financial figures are in twilight.
III/123 Protectionism, Free Trade & Swiss watches in US. (Later Swiss watchmakers had their difficulties, too, until they re-designed their whole range innovatively. And by now they have had to learn to cope with the competition from $ 2 digital watches. Producers are there to satisfy consumer. Consumers don't exist for the satisfaction of producers. Free enterprise is a service job, not a privilege. But cooperation for mutual benefit is possible between e.g. productive coops and consumer coops and so are special contracts between large suppliers and their customers. I also like the Internet-given opportunities for many buyers to combined their purchasing power to get special discounts. Also computerised surveys of the market to find the best offers. - J.Z., 13.6.03.) Free Trade propaganda for about 200 years was no more successful than Atheist propaganda in that period. Freedom of expression & information has not yet made fullest use of alternative media & special special, innovative and large reference works that could and should be compiled and published in these media and it must also be supplemented by full experimental freedom in spheres so far pre-empted by governments: Panarchism. - J.Z., 13. 6. 03.) Was the main flaw of the existing European currencies their multiplicity or their centralism and monopolism? Euro. Europe had a common currency before 1914, namely: gold coins. The weight differences were of no importance. (The small desirable improvement would have consisted merely in the adoption of a common weight unit for all these coins, discarding their national names and fractional deviation from a weight unit and then free coinage for them. - J. Z., 13. 6. 03.) Military situation. Democratic governments are not even good at military protection. Militia. Morgenthau proposes rationing and quotas, forgetting that Americans won in spite of such crazy measures.
III/124 Capital levies technically impossible, like ceding part of a shop, house or machine to the govt. (Actually, in form of corresponding imposed mortgages it would be possible but it would hardly appeal to somewhat free voters. - J.Z., 13.6.03.) Taxes raised must be invested quite liquidly. But it is impossible to find enough such investments. Ministers are considered to be experts because they do not ponder such "theoretical" questions. Their mentality is still that of the "coin age". The tax system, external & internal trade, laws concerning debts and banking are still on the same footing as they were in the coin age. Evil of considering paper money and banknotes as "Ersatz" for coins, and, consequently, clearing as an "Ersatz", too. Clearing is the normal kind of payment. Coins are an "Ersatz", although an indispensable one. (Small, fast, easy and cheap & secure electronic payments are still more a dream than a reality, I believe. Compare your experience at check-outs in shopping centres. Anyhow, I do not want all my payments to be visible to governments & advertisers and thus would not welcome goods & paper notes with inbuilt chips. - J.Z., 13.6.03.) Without standardised clearing cheques clearing largely remains a privilege and opportunity for a few. Standardised clearing cheques are the means to make the normal method of payment a general one. But, who is interested in such thoughts? B. did not write a book on it because he would not find a printer or publisher or enough sensible readers. Professors. Rittershausen's unfinished "Geldtheorie" manuscript. Atomic weapons. Saving important literature from them. Barbarism even among American occupation soldiers. Even Libertarians are not willing to save and combine all their writings cheaply and permanently e.g. on microfiche and CD-ROMs, keeping them thus permanently and cheaply in print.
III/ 125 Korean warfare method. (We now experience the consequence of our government's indiscriminate warfare half a century ago. - J.Z., 13.6.03.) Lack of a sound program - almost everywhere. Communists are at least interested in the details of their ideas, however crazy their ideas may be. Benedetto Croce. Aldred & effective resistance. Military leadership. The whole system must be changed completely. But who is interested? Even Aldred is unable to get his thoughts beyond those of Antimilitarists 100 years ago. 28. 8. 1950:
III/126 Warfare in Korea. Air raids compared with Nazi mass murders & their readiness to murder even more. Mostly they did not slaughter people quite as openly, in the streets and in their homes. Malthusianism. Dr. Fuelster, "Volk ohne Raum", 1947. Same title as the book that served Nazi propaganda. F. tries to refute the Nazi theory. Hitler was a 100 % Malthusian, although he never read Malthus. Fuelster quotes "Mein Kampf". Quite common to Hitler and Malthus: The absolute neglect of Free Trade. For Hitler trade was a Jewish invention, for communists it is a capitalist invention and Free Trade the most evil abuse of it. For them, too, that's self-evident. (Compare today's "Anti-Globalism". - J.Z.) 31. 8. 1950: Russians convicted for selling weapons and ammunition to the Hungarian underground. Kenneth de Courcy is right: As dangerous as Soviet power is, for money and vodka you may buy 9/10 of Russia. Similarly in Chiang-Kai Shek's China.
III/127 Powerful regimes remain powerful only as long as their adversaries do not consider their real weaknesses: corruptibility of everybody. (Plus their oppression & exploitation & cruelties & mass murders, victimising almost every family. In China e.g. compulsory abortions, do treat the victims according to the principle of collective responsibility and do not offer them a just and free way out. - J.Z., 13.6.03.) Mao used the silver he found at Tientsin and the same armies that would have effectively resisted him in battle could not resist the offer of silver. Gibbon, "Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire": The canons effectively used by Mohammed II against Constantinople were built by a Hungarian, who had fled the Inquisition. It would have been easy to prevent this conquest by a little cooperation. But the Western powers were indifferent. Territorial governments are almost always incompetent to solve any real problem - but competent to create, magnify and prolong them. Book title suggestion: The habitual blunders of governments when it comes to defence. 2. 9. 1950: Japan, Malthus & Australia. Grain production & prices in Germany.
III/128 Volunteer militia in London. Napoleon III had joined it before his putsch in France. Mosley & freedom of speech. Antisemitic popular fallacy. Voluntarism & war. French Revolution & its tactics. Military discipline. Desertion under Napoleon I towards his end. By 1813 the Prussians became revolutionaries. Russian volunteers in WW II. (My uncle Erich, the family's only Nazi, told me about the effectiveness of even single Russian sharpshooters, selecting optimal placements for themselves, equipped with plenty of ammunition, a bottle of water and a loaf of bread, risking but not wasting their lives, but wasting many of the remaining German soldiers. - J.Z., 13.6.03.) Ignoring the State. Such secessionists as allies against a dictatorship. Interest in hire-purchases. Nazi food policy. Small price increases made food imports largely unnecessary.
III/129 3. 9. 1950: On having children under tyrannies. Chinese philosophers & Buddha's point of view. Neo-Malthusianism. Social reform first to realise the true nature of life. Buddhist contradiction. Food from the sea. Fishing yields.
III/130 Saving. Present conditions. Inflation and devaluation. Providing for old age under these conditions. 4. 9. 1950: Desertion & patriotism. Voluntarism, conscription. Government was widely hated or held in contempt by 1915. By 1918 this view was almost general. Requirements to make battles largely unnecessary to win. If proclaimed in time, such declarations could become irresistible. But not for a Soviet government or a Nazi government. But, who is interested?
III/131 Just some criticism of a statist article by Marinos E. Constantacatos.
III/132 Index money idea, Irving Fisher, money with and money without cours forcé, gold production & price level. Inflation, "banking school", Wilson et al. Private contracts on long terms. Adam Smith. Malthusianism. Ancient Helvetia over-populated? Julius Caesar. Free Trade. Plutarch on Romans & Gauls. Cimbri & Teutones. III/133 Tacitus. Consequence of an aristocracy of hunters. Extreme case: William Rufs destroyed 60 villages to win room for hunting. Adam Smith (vs. speech of pope Urban II in 1095) on the discouragement of agriculture in Europe after the fall of Rome. Famines were frequent, but the main reason was the lack of transport facilities, as in China & other Asian countries. Crusaders. Land of milk & honey? More than half of the Crusaders starved in the "Holy" Country. Germans lacking food? They were "protected" from food imports. Their problem was almost always: selling food, not buying it. Malthusians. Abortions murder even more innocents than the Nazis did.
III/134 Malthus confounded victuals & employment. Under a real food shortage people would not be unemployed but over-worked in attempts to produce more food. Replace the Malthusian mentality by the Free Banking mentality. Primitive "economic" thinking like that of the Christians. 10. 9. 1950: Schutzverband der Zwangsversicherten…: It favoured a voluntary insurance alternative.
III/135 Disturbance of this meeting by statists. "United Germany" proposal then by Communists. Statism.
III/136 Seniority principle was done away with in East Germany but not West Germany. Runge's system and cours forcé. Separation of cash accounts and others at the banks. B. proposed that all accounts should be honest cheque accounts without the cash withdrawal option. 11. 9. 50: Discussion on alternative value standards. The right to hold gold.
III/137 B held for many years that Tucker was on the right track when he demanded a monetary revolution as the beginning of a social revolution. The monetary revolution may begin either by thinking & contracting in other value units or developing and using alternative exchange media. UNESCO statement on race. Negroe representatives & corruption. Where and are whites really less corrupt? Eliminating Negro majorities in government and administration or full exterritorial autonomy for them? Race discrimination in Java. Are customs, religions, traditions, habits and beliefs unchangeable or merely hard to change for all at the same time? Dismantling. German re-armament. Governments, that produced so much unemployment, the single thing that they were able to produce. Production went on, as Prof. Roepke remarked, in illegal ways. In legal ways it would not have been possible.
III/138 Voluntary militia and dictatorships. Japan & Malthusianism. Feudalism lasted longer in Japan. Invasion by Eastern "Volkspolizei" "people's police" expected.
III/139 Darwin on racism. Runge's plan. UN Human Rights Declaration. 12. 9. 1950: Camille Gutt, Man. Dir. of IMF on inflation, a statement full of errors, pointed out by B. (The bigger they rise & the more they are paid, the more flawed their ideas? All part of "why the scum rises to the top"? - J.Z., 14.6.03.)
III/140 Devaluation. Despotism & philosophy, acts & effects, personal thinking, popular thinking follows the language. There the language does not follow thought. People turned off by the babble of modern "economics". 13. 9. 1950: Malthusianism, Japan, food consumption. Avoidance of milk and milk products among adults has led to low cancer rates. Vegetarianism & Buddhism. Rents & taxes.
III/ 141 Malthusianism confuses the "product per head" with the part of the product which is left to the head of the producers. It ignores industrial production crossing borders in exchange for food etc. Bankrupting restrictions of trade. Free trade includes freedom in the use of means of payment. 14. 9. 50: If Malthus is right, the Free Traders and Free Bankers are wrong. Malthusianism, for several thousand years, has been the usual manner of blocked or illogical thinking people to solve economic and social questions. Prophylactics among Australian Aborigines. "Volk ohne Raum" myth.
III/142 Quite common to all those theories is: The problems are not to be solved. Instead: The men must disappear, together with their problems! Growing attitude among coloured people towards "whites": They are a degenerate people. They will be our prey. Malthusianism itself a motive for non-Malthusian people to begin a war with Malthusian people. 21. 9. 1950: Entrepreneurs as co-workers, making essential contributions. Wage differentials in Russia and England. Productive coops. Even if they do not greatly increase output, they would greatly increase understanding. Economic events must not only be good, they must also be seen as good. Hitler & the revolt of the Generals. Militia.
III/143 Japan, Malthus and machine cultivation. Fishing in Japan. Under-nourishment due to social & economic reasons or irrationalities, not due to overpopulation.
III/144 Photophone. 22. 9. 1950: Gold production, costs per ounce produced & purchasing price of Bank of England. Japan, population & Malthusianism. The payment system may prevent the payment of a decent wage.
A country is overpopulated if, at times of normal crops, good transport facilities, of real free trade, free banking and in the absence of government planning, the people stand in queues before the food shops. Such a condition has never been observed. 24. 9. 1950:
III/145 Manual workers, tradesmen and their conceit. Unemployed intellectuals doing all the work necessary for their support themselves, buying enterprises on terms, as suggested by B. Redemption of bonds & coupons by the Milhaud Principle: No redemption in cash but redemption by acceptance in payment for goods and services. Three years later, intellectuals will do the same work in 4 hours or less, which average labourers will do in 8 hours. Jewish Rabbis must all learn a trade, to keep them independent. An excellent principle. Compare what Heinlein said on competent men.
III/146 England now. What has the real England to do with changes in government? Precision instruments sent to prospective enemies. Zander. Taxes payable in due government bonds. Foreign exchange control & effects of its abolition.
III/147 Victuals enough in the world. What is lacking is merely permission to buy them. International Wheat Agreement. Did consumers agree? What enemy blockades could not perform the protectionists achieve. Custom officers should disobey. Every smuggler deserves the country's thanks. There exists no dollar shortage. There exists only a prohibition to use Sterling as a means of payment. Personal Law of French in Algeria. The own courts for the coloured. Free Trade as freedom for the Coloureds to buy where they want in the world. Free Banking would give them independence from the present money policy of the whites. Their choice, if they prefer e.g. cowries or makuta. Panarchies, Algeria & unemployment under French rule. Statism, libertarianism, territorialism, exterritorial autonomy, individual sovereignty. Experimental freedom & minority autonomy for all. Application to abortion controversy.
III/148 Korea, land reform, Hitler & governments-in-exile. Ireland & Panarchy. Chinese peasants. Adam Smith is right: The fundamental basis for a solution of the social question is a militia independent from the government. Protests by a million unarmed voters are very different from protests by a million armed voters. Governments can't ignore the latter. Iraq case: Both the war hawks and the peace doves were wrong on several points. Neither studied the problem objectively and arrived at some rightful and rational conclusions.
III/149 Even Pope Leo XIII, in the Encyclical "Immortale Dei" of Nov. 1, 1885, still held: "that heretics were justly burnt." - (How many more ideological dissenters were murdered in modern times than religious nonconformists in the past and present? - J.Z., 14.6.03.) Perhaps that attitude partly explains the stand in West Germany against refugees, who are mainly Protestants? Foreign exchange controls. Maltusianism: By his reckoning England should have had 640 million people by 1950. All England would be a city. It would have ruled the world for decades. The whole world would compete to nourish England. By Free Trade and Free Banking it would have been an easy thing. But the English, too, preferred their remaining chains - or did not allow dissenters to opt out sufficiently. Religious freedom must be supplemented by its political, economic and social equivalents. Cimbri & Teutones were far from undernourished.
III/150 The assertion that a people is a "Volk ohne Raum", while hiding from the people the possibilities of Free Trade & Free Banking, that has produced many wars. When a great part of China and the Philippines etc. was conquered, the Japanese Govt. forbade the emigration to the conquered territories. It was intelligent enough not to believe in overpopulation. To what extent is a government entitled to jeopardise its subjects' lives, wealth & independence? When begins the subjects' right of resistance & what kind of resistance is possible? When begins the minorities' right of resistance and what are their possibilities? 28. 9. 1950: Francis Whitmore on devaluation. Today's "gold-reserve": foreign exchange.
III/151 Government "actions" in times of crises. Prof. Machlup's omissions when writing on "balance of trade". Population of Japan, urban & rural, 1920 & 1940. England, Netherlands, Belgium & Java more populated.
III/152 Figures show what trade can do for a population. As evil as the present state of English currency is, a simple return to the "Redemption Gold Standard" of 1913 would not be a good reform. It had brought down the other gold standards, which are much more important than the redemption standard: 1.) The standard given by a free bullion market. 2.) The standard given by the custom to value goods and services in gold coins. These two gold standards have objectively nothing to do with the redemption standard, which M. also rejected. Both existed long before there was any paper money used. Large papers do never seriously discuss serious reforms of the existing money system, not in any country. Malthusianism
III/153 Does an "average income" for slaves and slave masters make sense? Land holdings in Japan and Scotland. Role of the agricultural money lender in India and China before the Communist revolution. (Was the total take by the Communists even larger?) Restriction of incomes for the lower classes through bad laws. Malthusians are not right in one detail of their doctrine. Agriculture in Japan & Australia.
III/154 If all of Japan became one city, this would not prevent Japan from being very rich, provided Free Banking and Free Trade are in full swing there. It would be a town in the same situation as Athens, which was rich, although she depended mainly upon trade and manufacturing. All errors and all truths are interlinked. Optimal population. Italian agricultural coops: "affitanza collectiva". 29. 9. 1950: Normal currency circulation, devaluation & inflation, reckoning in Gold, for Germany.
III/155 29. 9. 1950: G. Goldberg. Nazi inconsistency in their racist views. Wages at Melbourne Harbour.
III/156 Goldberg's first impressions from Australia. B's article: Goldwaehrung & Immobilitienkredit". This may have been the only one he could get published after his books in the Annals. Freedom of press? For whom? Free Banking Calendar, publishing the clauses of monetary despotism. 2. X. 1950:
III/157 Malthusianism. Andrew Roth: "Dilemma in Japan". Realistic on situation of peasants in Japan. Quotes from it. Germany in WWII: Continual hunger was the normal feeling of average people.
III/158 Irrigation - would be easy, with sufficient capital. But exploited peasants don't have sufficient capital and can't get it. Japan was "protected" from cheap rice imports. Numerous peasant revolts occurred. Taxes demanded in cash where cash was short. So peasants had sell their harvests at emergency sales prices. Absentee landlords & strikes against them, reported in Edmund Kleinschmitt, "Durch Werkstaetten & Gassen dreier Erdteile", Berlin 1928. Fate of peasant girls in indentured servitude. Indebtedness of peasants.
III/159 Japanese landlordism & result for Japanese peasants. Fishing and Malthusianism. Sea plants as human food. Sea plants may surpass quantity of land plants.
III/160 For Japan & other countries there was and will be never any other help than full political freedom, Free Trade and Free banking. Malthusianism is no help. Colin Clark on agricultural production growth faster than population growth. Clothing and housing: It was never a problem to produce clothing or raw material for it. The problem was always to sell it. For housing not shortage of bricks or mortar is the problem, but finance. Farming in Japan and Australia. Continuance of disagreement.
III/ 161 Malthusianism paralyses social reform thinking. The thoughts, ideas, arguments facts and references of the latter have not yet been sufficiently mobilised, although, technically, this would now be relatively easy and cheap.
Very few in the world, perhaps no more than 1000, see: The evils in the world are, essentially, Banking disorders. Nevertheless, these few pioneers have not yet bothered to combine all the relevant writings and offer them cheaply and permanently in affordable media. Maybe less than a dozen CD-ROMs would suffice. With all their resources combined, they could rapidly become the most sought after and best paid consultants in the world. But, will they bother to so arm and prepare themselves with the "weapons and ammunition" required, with the information that should be closest to their hearts and minds? How can one induce them to act in this direction? The importance of monetary liberty is a discovery like that of the heliocentric system in astronomy. 7. X. 1950: Calendar of French Revolution, duty to continue "The Individualist".
III/162 "The Individualist", M. & B., alternative media. 8. X. 1950: Colin Clark, Communism, State socialism. Capitalism.
III/163 Mentality of workers, employer-employee relationship, liberation at the work place, financing it, slave mentality and anti-capitalist mentality, Kurt Zube's Manifesto for Peace and Freedom pointed out: German workers could liberate themselves with a fraction of their bank accounts from one day to the other. Factory banks or savings banks with employers. Even published company statements ignored. They prefer to continue to adhere to false and fixed ideas on their situation. Technology and spread of independent proprietors. Technological decentralisation options grow. Bata system. Italian agricultural coops and large-scale agriculture. Colin Clark.
III/164 Colin Clark, Capitalism & Free Banking, ownership reform or exchange reform, or both. Free banking will also promote coops and partnerships. Clark on the false track of Karl Marx. Every opinion not considering the right to freely issue standardised means of payment leads to the erroneous opinion that the problem must be solved by redistribution of ownership. Free Trade and Free Banking, consistently and rationally applied, not only yield the maximum production but also guarantee human rights and dignity in the most effective and simple way. French & Japanese peasantry compared. Committees of Ministers, God.
III/165 9. X. 1950: Velikowski theory and Biblical wonders. The Biblical language likely to have been misunderstood, as are many languages and dialects. Reconstruction of the likely original wordings of the "sun standing still" passage.
III/166 Revisions and incomplete "corrections" of Old Testament by Ezra. Gold standard & paper money. 12. X. 1950: Individualism & Korean War. Individualism is the tendency of un-terrified individuals to bring authoritarian power and monopolies to the technically possible minimum. It teaches that every individual possesses rights which cannot be lost and which even a majority cannot abolish. It teaches, too, that such rights exist in the economic and social spheres no less than in the political. Here Individualists differ from most Liberals. History showed that the individual's most important rights are to buy and to sell. When citizens are in a position to sell their products or their labour and to buy the just equivalents, then they get, by and by, all other liberties, and this even if the society's original political state was the most far-going absolutism. Buying and selling are impossible without standardised means of payment, freely transferable, sufficiently fixed in value - by the nature of the means of payment - and free of cours forcé. Legal tender. Forced value, compulsory acceptance. Russian paper money example. Bank of England notes, during Napoleonic war, had legal tender but were without cours forcé, until the law of 1811. Fiat money always injures.
III/167 Governments or monetary despotism are unable to supply means of payment in sufficient quantity and quality. Private standardised means of payment must supply the gap. (Not only the gap! Some of them will, as better wide-spread currencies, drive out the worse money of governments. - J.Z., 14.6.03.) The right for private people to issue them was, in old times, called the right of banking - a fundamental economic right of men and citizens. Korean war pronunciamento, also derived from Tucker. Capitalism vs. "capitalism". State capitalism vs. rightful forms of voluntary or cooperative socialism. Proudhon's: "liberal socialism", going beyond of what is now called "libertarian socialism". State capitalism. libertarian communism. The Korean War Pronunciamento in 19 points and short comments - to page 169. Not summarised here. Some texts cannot be properly summarised. They have to be read, pondered and understood. Try to summarise a good poem or a good bill of rights. Are the secret services able to discover and comprehend and recommend such platforms? They are merely governmental bureaucracies and as such almost always inefficient. 15. X. 1950:
III/170 Would much reading matter have enlightened Robinson Crusoe more than it did Henry Meulen. Would it have turned R. C. into a perfect economist and revolutionary? Malthusianism, submarines. Cause of wars. Hitler & Germany. Deaths by overfeeding vs. deaths from hunger. Present methods against unemployment cost money instead of producing money. Mathematical flaw in Malthusian doctrine. Liebig & labour, intelligence & machines used in agriculture, related to returns.
III/171 Liebig, language and scientific language. Law of diminishing returns. Japan & additional labour in the fields. Food grown in skyscrapers and underground. Largely a question of energy supply. Malthusianism. Migration to and from Germany. Koch achieved repeal of the crazy law that limited note issues to those of 100 M. and more. The 19th century experience with agricultural labour turned the rule of diminishing returns into a quite contrary rule. We are only at the beginnings of agricultural science.
III/172 Formosa: An impartial study of the Formosan economy would overthrow Malthusianism. It would reveal the decisive importance of trade and credit, even in such a primitive shape as is used by Chinese merchants at Formosa. Mixed marriage. Race war atrocities. Prof. Kimble: "… when the first white man came to Africa, he had the Bible and the native had the land. Now the native has the Bible, and the white man has the land." "Land reform" in South Africa: Europeans had 156 acres per head, the Bantu less than 7 acres. Sooner or later the answer of the Bantu will not be "moral restraint" but, rather, the answer that Haitians gave in 1791 to their white oppressors. (However, many South African whites arrived before most black immigrants came and the latter were attracted by the achievements of the former. - J.Z., 14.6.03.) Malthusianism in Japan, India & China. Hitler's rather indiscriminate exterminations. Genghis Khan. Wars may be expected due to Malthusian propaganda. Propaganda for Free Trade & Free Banking would open the whole world to all its inhabitants.
III/173 Investigate what private enterprise would have been if Free Banking would have been permitted & used. Clearing cheques without redemption in gold on demand. Clearing in medieval times. Fairs at Lyon, Cahors etc. better in clearing than London was at the time of Jevons. Example from a German town. Roepke, a good man, knows much and is an adversary of totalitarianism - but he knows nothing of Free Banking. Exclusive Currency leads to totalitarianism, even among those who do fight against it.
III/174 Pure liberal philosophy. Economist remark that because liberty is an uncompromising questions it can only be upheld by a party or movement which is concerned not with power nor with princes but with what is right. A party never likely to form a government, but with access to the formidable sounding board of Westminster would have a chance to stand on its principles … and expose the shallow compromises of routine politicians. (My condensation. - J.Z.) B. commented: I do not remember to have read in the Economist a passage more serious, more wise and more practically spoken. (But have modern and somewhat libertarian think tanks as yet sufficiently filled that role? - J.Z., 14.6.03.) B. suggested to M. to form a party with 7 young friends. Alas, M. could not gather as many young friends, either! 16. X. 1950: Marco Polo on China's population. His ESP observations at Court. Labadie: "All I am pleading for is the freedom of note issue, and then let interest persist if it can."
III/175 Different things are wrongly all called "interest". An important part of political economy would get another face if only there would be invented suitable words for the different kinds of "interest". Bastiat & Proudhon discussion on this. 17. X. 1950: Kant, Schopenhauer, value of life and social reform, Buddha, & evils like torture
III/176 Communism, Marx, Engels, State socialism or State capitalism. Independent ownership & its limitations. Adam Smith, Division of Labour & unwillingness to accept the products of others. Order system and its limited role, when compared with Free Banking. To some extent the order system is already applied, e.g. for housing and long-term other goods. Choice between employers is not enough. Italian coops and how they got established.
III/177 Bata system vs. too large private enterprises or coops. Colin Clark. Capitalism is monopoly of capital. (Rather, a not sufficiently wide-spread oligopoly or capital ownership. - J.Z., 14.6.03.) Example given by Carlyle, where an Abbott got a mill destroyed that peasants had built for themselves. That view should be called "monopoly capitalism" as opposed to quite freely competing capitalism, in which everybody legally could participate and would have the economic opportunity to do so, using all free market financial options. Japan & Malthusianism: Japanese farms compared with Australian ones.
III/178 Already Petty saw that density of population is an asset. Different productivity in England and USA. Malthusianism. Cultivation of deserts - without enough paying eaters? Payments abroad. Balance of trade.
III/179 Redemption at the bullion market instead of at the counter of the note issuer. War with Hitler in 1933. Non-interference? Fichte on this. Korea, China & tomorrow Greenland are English & German matters. (H. was largely welcomed as a supposed ally against Communism. Hitler, Rittershausen & Ramin saw things differently. Installing a German revolutionary government in England and an alliance with it and then declaring war on the Nazis. The losses would have been trifling compared with those which occurred. (The panarchistic alternatives could have reduced the losses even further. A panarchistic Nazi regime, for voluntary followers only, might really have made itself ridiculous, as individualist anarchist Dr. Walther Borgius expected the territorial Nazi regime to become. - J.Z., 14..6.03.) Napoleonic wars. Dr. Otto Strasser, et al & Hitler.
III/180 18. X. 1950: M.'s proposal to use the value of gold at one particular day as a from then on invariable unit of value. Partly realised in German insurance. Deutschland Rueckversicherungs A.G., Prof. Dr. Paul Riebesell, then introduced it in the Hamburg Feuerkasse. Dr. Ramin. How B. helped to introduce the M. standard into an as important branch of the economy as insurance. But demands as immediate measure the permission to create a free bullion market and permission to use its prices for the pricing of goods, services and labour. Here, too, one has to distinguish between capital goods and consumer goods ready for sale.
III/181 Woolworth pricing now by goods prices of 1914? How many goods would still be of the same kind? How many would have no precedent? To be introduced within hours a measure must be simple and easily comprehended. Four major objections of B. against the M. system. 19. X. 1950: Two major agreements.
III/182 The market to be the supreme judge. Value relation of goods to gold coins. The problem is not to construct a medium value of gold from the observed changes of the value. The problem is rather: How to explain why the disturbances are so very small and in practice negligible? One of the reasons: The great accumulation of gold compared with the relatively small annual production. The value of M- units will be influenced by the lending policy of his kind of banks. Several M-type banks will have several different lending policies. Several different "invariable units" would result.
III/183 Under freedom conditions and within a few weeks gold coins will possess all the good properties M. expected from his value standard units. 26. X. 1950: H. L. Follin, founder of the République Supranationale and later of Cosmemétapolis, which demanded a charter of economic rights, including monetary ones. His "Paroles d'un voyant". (I never yet saw any other of his writings! - J.Z., 14.6.03.) Follin: Not labour endows products with value. Labour brings them into existence. Value they get by exchange. B. had a long correspondence with F. I all of this lost on F.'s side, too??? F. had a son. - J.Z., 14.6.03.)
III/184 Follin quite unknown at several Alliance Francaise centres. Nuclear war threat. Soviet surrender demand. Their atomic bomb factories were not destroyed in time. Only the Israelis once destroyed a nuclear reactor of their enemies that was to be used for nuclear weapons. - Their history makes them more afraid of mass extermination devices - but does not prevent them from using such collective responsibility devices against innocent Arabs when attempting to resist their oppressive rulers. They might change their minds if these "weapons" were renamed: Small and portable extermination camp packages, still more indiscriminately mass murderous than the Nazi extermination camps were. - But call them powerful weapons and they appear to be justified and useful. - J.Z., 14.6.03.) Serious interest in the own affairs? Not under the prevailing slave mentality. Suicide aids sell well. B.'s metaphysics that of Kant & Schopenhauer. Other philosophers, too, taught that ideas are beings sui generis, such as seeds. (Obviously, they are not yet sufficiently mobilised by a proper market for them, as proposed e.g. with the Ideas Archive. - J.Z., 14.6.03.) 28. X. 1950:
III/185 Farming conditions in Algeria, old Prussia and Italy. Emigration not for lack of food but largely for lack of employment, especially in winter. Gaetano Marzotto's paternalistic system. Working the own land peasants would probably have found useful work for themselves during the winter, too. Example of modern "machine storming" or rather wilful avoidance of the use of efficient machines.
III/16 Canberra economics lecturer praised Red Chinese method of building great dams via masses of labourers working with shovels, baskets and wheelbarrows! Most professional economists tend to get along, not protesting, with every anti-economic absurdity a government practices or may even apologise it or praise it. Overpopulation is seen where, in reality, nothing else exists than bad organisation and general stupidity. Unemployment. Money is supposed to be missing. But not money is missing but a) means of payment, standardised like money is, to pay wages with, b) people prepared to accept that money-Ersatz, c) credit on a stable basis, so that creditors are attracted. Most people, being on fixed wages, get thereby a Malthusian mentality. In a free economy children will be a good investment and soon self-supporting, as they are still largely in agriculture. Upbringing and education loans may become more profitable than others. First proposed by Prof. Engel, director of the Prussian statistical office about 90 years ago. He had founded several mortgage banks on a mutual basis and also the first German credit insurance company. He also tried, in vain, to introduce the English Building Society principle in Germany.
III/187 29. X. 1950: UN, Major C. N. Douglas and his Social Credit system. Kimmitt: There is only one way to free trade, and that is to free trade." 10. 11. 1950:
III/188 Tucker was justified when he demanded that editors & their staff should be able to print papers themselves in an emergency. Now they have largely automated printing plants and the Internet. Inflation, always a disaster, quite distinct from dearness. No Dollar shortage under floating exchange rates and monetary freedom. If Germans were really unable to plan, this would be a great honour, like the Roman remark: "Sardinians are bad slaves". They really were. The Roman proverb was: "cheap as a Sardinian". India policy. All the diverse Indians to rule themselves under one institution and one set of laws? Genuine self-government does not get away from free individual choices. Peaceful coexistence is possible only when we accept the tolerant practices of sportsmen towards other sports than their own favourite ones.
III/189 Panarchism vs. "self-government" and "national independence" as practised or aimed at now. I can satisfy more power addicts than can territorialism - but it also restrains their activity to voluntary victims. Main remaining defect of Pax Romana, Pax Britannica & Pax Americana, of which their practitioners remained unaware, at a huge cost to themselves and others. Full employment & nationalism. Free experimentation for employment methods would soon demonstrate which systems do work. Indian unemployed became nationalists or revolutionaries. Overpopulation in India? Even scythes are not used yet in a great part of India - because the peasants cannot pay for them. (There must also be mental resistance, for not that much more metal and wood is used in the larger scythes. - J.Z., 14.6.03.) What Tibet's fate has been wrongly made dependent upon. How to organise an international resistance against such people. The Dalai Lama hardly constitutes an ideal government-in-exile, although he could rightfully constitute ONE of them, for his volunteers. Bastiat proposed that no parliamentarian should become a minister. (I rather hold: No one should, except in volunteer communities that still believe in such animals. - "Leadership struggles" are struggles on who should lead a country into a further mess or disaster - and get well rewarded for his "contribution". - J.Z., 14.6.03.
III/190: "Individualism" uses "Socialism" as a synonym for "governmental socialism". Such abuses of the language results in the situation that in English, like in other languages, no word exists for a movement which aims to reduce injustice and exploitation of men by men to the extent to which this is technically and psychologically possible. As Tucker's article "State Socialism and Anarchism" showed, the word "socialism" was quite apt as a name for such a movement. Tucker insisted on "Anarchy" for his aim. If he would have invented a new and proper name, he would today, perhaps, be acknowledged as the reformer. Use of "nationalisation" instead of "expropriation", first possibly used by leaders of the Irish Land League, 60-70 years ago. The mere world "expropriation" would have been an insurmountable obstacle. But "nationalisation" must have seemed to the people of that time to be merely a little exaggeration of patriotism. Was there in ancient Greece a secret alliance of worshippers of Apollo, aiming to avoid the destruction of towns and of orchards? Would such an alliance have been possible in Europe and in the USA? Its aims should simply be: Realisation of the laws of war resolved upon by the Congress at The Hague, in the year 1908. A modest aim, seeing that in all States its resolutions are officially written laws.

1. III/191 It is a great consolation that there live in the world some women whose horizon is not limited to interests in little household matters. How can a scientist be a Christian? Korea: B. did not expect his proposals to be accepted by a Syngman Rhee. "Despotisme tempére par l'assassinat" is perhaps still the best for it for the next few years. The tyranny of committees, cooperative & others. Foreign interference, like the British, after the French Revolution, deserves resistance from its own subjects. Cobbett writings against this, extracted in Heine's Letters from England. It was an action of ruling British classes against French peasants who had expropriated the same classes in France. Louis XVIII. 23. 11. 1950: "Tagesspiegel" clippings on Otto Strasser. Summarised by B. In German, mostly, to page 195.
   
2. III/195 24. 11. 1950: Tyranny of shop councils in Germany, applying political & religious discrimination. Coops as alternative to the excluded. But that would require a degree of initiative seldom found in this class. Also, because all things in this world must be financed, it would require a system of Free Banking. Theodor Hertzka. B was converted by him away from Marxism to what was then called "Social Liberalism". Now B. was no longer quite satisfied with Hertzka's proposals although he still thinks them quite valuable. Bastiat's edition of his discussion with Proudhon appeared 1850 entitled "Gratuité du crédit". Bastiat's edition the better and complete. P.'s incomplete. Tucker on this discussion. But even he did not see the subject in the right light. Like nearly all economists he by far overestimated the importance of interest. Statistics were not available. Today we know that the sum of all interest in a community is about 5 % of the community's income. Of this only a very small part is paid to banks and the smallest part to note-banks. In crisis times interest in some cases is a heavy burden but not because it is high, say, more than 6 %, but because it must be paid in fiat money, which is nearly always scarce.
   
3. Tucker, Proudhon & Bastiat did not sufficiently distinguish note-bank credit to finance the exchange of existing goods and credit to finance the exchange of existing goods for goods not yet existing. The first can be done without a bank-capital or any other capital, with capital used in the popular sense. The second requires capital, firstly raw materials and wages, also to replace the depreciation of the used machines. In both cases interest is unavoidable.
   
4. Inherent rights. Kant on human nature. Some men suppress their human nature. One relevant experience of B. Distinction between rights which a man can give up and other rights, which he cannot. Each makes this distinction for himself. Catholic Church.
   
5. III/197 Payments abroad. Reflux of national paper money to the country of issue. As Zander expressed it: It is at least as strong as the tendency of a pigeon to return to its roost. Before 1914 the buyer determined the means of payment. For large deals the "Gegengeschaeft", the opposite trade, is also arranged by the trading partners. Futures trading has its basis in such transactions. For smaller deals one did not buy or sell "Termin-Devisen". Merchants know better than governments how to make trades beneficial for both sides. Foreign interference. The Germany of 1933 needed it and justified it.
   
6. III/198 The term "internal affairs" does not justify any despotic act. Hitler and his followers did not deserve any more respect than the French king, who once stated: "L'état, cest moi!" Alas, even libertarians and anarchists still fall for flawed slogans and "principles". The mentality of the German nation as opposed to that of the Nazis, could be seen clearly in 1939 at every railway station. Even in 1914 the initial enthusiasm among all too many did not last long. Later it took deception to get troops into the trains to the front. Willingness of countries? Countries are never asked. When currencies were much depreciated then e.g. Germany, Hungary, Italy, Austria, China, Japan, did not pay in gold as M. had assumed they would have. B. writing in the cold, with cold fingers and erring often, he says. (I write now in a cold room, too, but with so many layers of clothing that I still feel warm. - J.Z., 14.6.03.)
   
7. III/199 25. 11. 1950: Social order: Unions & their co-determination. Lack of program among most. Those who have one get no chance to be heard or read. Economic order. Present paper standard is distrusted but people know no better one. "We have no gold!" All forgot the gold standard of 1923, which worked quite well without more gold than the few kilos or less that were daily bought or sold at the Exchange. People demand price reductions although prices, expressed in gold, are already low. When the govt. admits a higher price in its paper for gold then it declares, indirectly, that its currency is already depreciated. Reason's fate in crisis situations. A plan is needed
   
8. the people can understand and that can be executed within an hour. M.'s plan does not possess this quality.
   
9. III/200: M., for his "invariable unit" wanted to pick the gold of a particular day. Which day? Any day under the rule of Central Banks does not truly represent the value of anything, gold or whatever. Korea program of B. Not intended for any government but for reading by any intelligent Asian. In China, until about 1931 the right of every banker to manufacture silver currency (sycee) was acknowledged and even considered as self-evident, not needing legal confirmation. Malthusianism: Atomic bombs as blockade breaking weapons? (I can't see any rightful use for them on Earth. - J.Z., 14.6.03.)
   
10. III/201 6. 12. 1950 B. and his conditions in Berlin.
    
11. III/202 Follin, mentioned in THE INDIVIDUALIST of April 1935. B. thinks he might be ranked with Tucker. His domain was the organisation of individualist activity on an international and new scale. He was a strong opponent of cours forcé and of all kinds of government planned economies. Russia & China, Stalin & Mao "do not know how to let people enjoy the products of their labours and to provide employment otherwise than by making ammunition and building "pyramids". Marx without ideas for the Commune of Paris. Great heroes as killers. Killing people by leading them to the battlefields is easy, simple, honourable and the costs are paid by the people themselves.
    
12. III/203 German economic literature - does not deserve the name literature. Indian independence? "I would be interested in the address of one Indian who is now more independent than he was before. (Well, the prisons were emptied of political prisoners and the former prisoners, then in ruling positions, improved prison conditions. So they had at least some grateful "customers". - J.Z., 14.6.03.) 7. 12. 1950: Stephen King-Hall on China, conforms 50 year old reports expressed in Baroness von Heyking, "Letters which did not reach him". She got her views from a Dr. Silverstein, who had published many articles in a New York daily. (I stated my disagreements with the 2 views B. reported on. - J.Z.)
    
13. III/204 Gold coins and their "pricing" in paper money. Whatever goods are used as a measure of prices get an additional stability in value through such use. Gold redemptionism & right of creditors to demand gold.
    
14. III/205 All blame laid upon gold should be directed to the above two features only. As Rittershausen put it: Not the gold was guilty but the bank directors were. He might have added: And the legislators. M.'s system of "covering" notes by medium and long term securities. Different practices will result among different M.- Banks. Their notes will, as a result, get differently rated in a free money market. There will be XYZ different Meulen pounds, all more or less deviating from the supposedly "invariable unit" or the value of a weight of gold on a certain day. Gold coins will soon be considered as a much more reliable and easy value standard. Treatment of British troops in Korea by American commanders. Wide-spread opinion that in WW III the protection of Germany by Americans will be very moderate and, practically, zero. Germans will then think: Why fight rather than surrender? Whoever wins, Germany will be destroyed. Malthusianism and its military effects. DP: Deutsche Party.
    

==================================================================================

Contents Section IV
of file: Meulen - Beckerath correspondence, pages 1 - 203, 9. 12. 1950 - 31. 10. 1951


Contents of Volume IV
Letters of U. v. Beckerath
to Henry Meulen

IV/1 9. 12. 1950: Abuse of language by governments, Turgénieff, two languages now in Russia. The word "socialism then and now. Bismarck, Tucker, state socialism, State socialism. A word is needed for a movement whose aim it is to reduce the exploitation of men by men to the technically possible minimum, where the means applied are expressed by an attribute to "socialism". Even the notion of such an aim has been lost, for the notion depends, for average people, upon the existence of a word for it. Duration of bank loans
IV/2 Normal duration for loans granted by note-issuing banks: The short time of transportation of existing goods from the place of manufacture or storage to the place where it was to be bought for consumption by the last buyer and user. The profit of such a business is not great. W. B. Greene proposed it for non-profit-making coops. Other business of bankers cannot simply be done by handing over notes for the amounts of credits involved and telling them: Return these notes to me within 15 years. The notes themselves are not capital. They can only help in transferring capital under certain precautions required by their very nature, described in B.'s books. Distinction between the exchange of present goods for other present goods and of present goods for future goods still to be produced. Banknotes etc. for the former, capital securities for the latter. They have their different issue and reflux spheres and timing. Why should those providing ready for sale goods, services and labour accept capital certificates of others as means of payment, even if they are offered in form of banknotes? Free men can refuse them and would be informed by their free market rating that it is wise to do so. They would have not enforced acceptance or compulsory value. (Legal tender & cours forcé) Experience will teach those still in doubt. Financing in old times is not yet fully explained.
IV/3 Marx, Engels, credit arrangements at their time. 10. 12. 1950: Dismantling (Demontagen), defence against Soviets, Korean War, Civil War of the US. 11. 12. 1950:
IV/4 Gold coins, individualist monetary system, right to refuse acceptance of notes. Right to issue notes & independence. Nero's depreciation of silver coins. Taxes had to be paid in the old coins. Obligation to accept the own issues at par. Agnostics & atheists in the Bible Belt. 15. 12. 1950: Quinine as medicine
IV/5 Payments abroad. Greene & the right of creditors to demand gold. It is more extensive than metal redemptionism. Essential part of the old gold standard. Established by civil law. Should be replaced by right to clearing-house certificates instead. German Civil Law o 1900 on this. It only required that agreements must be fulfilled as good faith and customs require. (Par 242 BGB) "Experts" in banking conference of 1908 overlooked this. Every note or certificate has the tendency to return to the issuer. Jevons reported resistance among English merchants against clearing.
IV/6 Gold Standard. English currency before 1913: gold coins. They never suffered a depreciation. Free Banking in the M.-system.
IV/7 Internal affairs & armies of volunteers. Right to retire from armies. Have Europeans and Americans lost the capacity to talk reasonably about such things? If there is a future for mankind, volunteers from the whole world will interfere if the rights of man and citizens are violated in any part of the world. Rightful militia idea. Anarchists as example. Kamikaze pilots: Self-preservation is not always the guiding principle of human conduct. Salazar. India & independence. Deutsche Partei. Reconstruction of Nazi promises of 1932/33. Literature is destroyed. Hitler, gold & Jewish conspiracy "theory".
IV/8 Can one store gold, i.e., not lend it out and, nevertheless, get interest from it. Silly & dangerous Nazi belief on this: Let's capture a prominent Jew and torture him until he would at last reveal the secret how to do this! Silliness may also become a political power. Malthusianism. 29. 12. 1950: Chicken prices in London & Berlin. Socialism - Individualism, anti-capitalist Individualist. Capital for non-capitalists and to break the monopoly of the class now called capitalistic. "Bank-Socialism" better word for the aim than "Free Banking"? B.'s two books on unemployment. (PEACE PLANS 9 & 10.)
IV/9 His third book (PP 11) develops a further application of the principles at first established by Milhaud (and then much further developed by B, as Milhaud himself admitted - J.Z.). Long-term loans - with notes only or with willing and ready capital? Scratchley's economics books, especially: "Local Enterprise Societies". Gold coins and their power. Constantine created a good gold coin system, which helped to make his Christianity acceptable.
IV/10 Loans in priest-ridden countries. Antisemitic note-issuing bank in Pommerania, 1923/24. How it defeated its own intentions. In our time no act of monetary craziness or fanaticism can be considered as impossible. B.'s draft on monetary rights, in response to one of the numerous proposals made in 1947. 2. I. 1951: Otto Strasser. Italian elections. Destroying the Fascist literature is clearly the way to a new Fascist movement. Payments abroad, "dollar shortage" & export spleen.
IV/11 Gold coins, their value & the "fixed paper price" for them: Gold coins could not depreciated because they were themselves the legal measure of value. Mint policy. Jevons. Pop opinion that paper money is the natural measure of value, also for gold.
IV/12 The natural measure of value, one freely chosen, in a world without prohibitions on this. Artificial standards of value & their disadvantages. The right of those, who prefer other measures of value than gold should not be violated. The "gold standards" should be considered in all their details. Suitable terms required. The "jacks in office". Tax-foundation money & its invention. Language change. Free coinage. Fort Knox & spleen of antisemites.
IV/13 Chicken prices. Free Banking without metallic redemption by the issuer & instead convertibility on the bullion market and redemption in goods, services, labour & debt receipts. Free Banking system of Four Bills is independent of "trust" in M's meaning. Runs. Offering the runners gold bonds instead of gold coins. Niebuhr, King Friedrich Wilhelm III. Gold standards. Fluctuations of gold values compared with fluctuations of paper money values. Gold as a measure of value does not possess a price.
IV/14 Not "the price" of gold coins will be stable if governments do not interfere with it but its usefulness, purchasing power and abundance will reach their maximum. Issue of notes without any "reserves". The readiness to accept the notes at par, by the bank's debtors and the bank itself is quite sufficient to keep them at par at the bullion market. However, business with reserves should not be prohibited. Banks of Amsterdam & Hamburg also used stocks of silver coins as "reserves" for their clearing - until they had to see & learn that clearing was possible without such reserves. No need for gold reserves in external trade, either. Three monetary freedom conditions for really Free Trade. Zander on "Protectionism": "The enemy stands threatening with bread & bacon at the frontier. Don't let him in at all!" Credits on a gold basis vs. credits without it. Salazar.
IV/15 India, parliament, voters & dictatorships. A new system required. The basis for it provided by Tucker. Our task should be to complete it. Hitler's promises. Parliaments could not fulfil them, either. German voters of 1932. Pax Britannica. 4. I. 1951:
IV/16 Hitlerism practically dead. One aspect of Hitler's power-base: The government could force all officials to join the party or into its organisation. Further: The whole country was subdivided into national guilds (Fachschaften) as proposed by Cole & Catholics, and these forced the managers & department heads to become party members as well. At last it became necessary to gather the real Nazis in special organisations. In May 1945 the many millions compelled to become members were suddenly free. They should not have been treated as Nazis.
(My mother could get a lowly job as a secretary, to support her two kids, only by joining the party! By coincidence: At the height of the Great Depression there were about 8 million unemployed in Germany and Hitler ended up, through his "membership drives" among his cattle, with about 8 million dues-paying members. That alone would have turned him into a multi-millionaire. Would the 8 million have been willing to pay a mere 1 RM for a realistic plan to get all of them peacefully employed fast? Today's hundreds of millions of unemployed are still not willing to make such a "sacrifice" and self-help "effort". - J.Z., 16.6.03.) In the Potsdam court for final revision ("Rechnungshof") all members were collectively signed up as party members by its manager. No one dared to protest. This system was also applied by the Kremlin. Election of military officers
IV/17 9. I. 1951: Investment in chain store shares. Pricing in gold coins. Chicken prices. B. had a sister in Wiesbaden. (And a brother Erich, a conventional economist, somewhere else. - J.Z.) Gold coins daily offered and demanded at a free bullion market are the best means to express prices in shops. Cours forcé. What if it were repealed & also the note issue monopoly? Payment communities, a term invented by Knapp. Three gold standard aspects.
IV/18 Gold & Kitson's terminology. Long-term loans. Limit for the issue of means of payment without cours forcé: the production of about 3 - 5 weeks. Loan certificates, when due (or shortly before, as B. pointed out somewhere else! - J.Z.) should not be redeemed by currency but by being accepted by the debtor in his normal business. Other payment option: issue of corresponding amounts of goods- and service warrants, which the debtor would accept and then use to pay his debt with them. Meulen system acts as if it were entitled to write out "cheques" upon the goods and services provided by others, for long-term investments by the M.- banks. (If they are foolish and trusting enough & if there is not enough competition, then this might work for a while. Even the money of monetary despotism works for a while and in its fashion. - J.Z., 16.6.03.)
IV/19 Meulen notes are camouflaged capital securities, which do not even pay any interest. Publicity alone would defeat this system. Dividend coupons, when due, used as means of payment. B. saw them in the shop of his father. Even if all the present currency is hoarded, within hours a fresh currency can be supplied. Experience with free note issues will teach all the required lessons. Freedom to experiment. Individualism supplies not only new aims but also the technique to attain the aims & reasons against false techniques. The unlimited right to issue, or, rather, to offer for acceptance, standardised means of payment, combined with the unlimited right of others to refuse or discount these offers. Starting from any other Ism, one comes to State inflation, Keynesian managed currencies and such monsters.
IV/20 The "Individualist": Its monetary views not yet individualistic enough. Rights vs. permissions, privileges etc. Rights are not only ideas but powers. Carlyle in his history of the French Revolution presented this fact convincingly. German peasants in the US of 1848 helping an escaped Negro slave.
IV/21 What Socrates should have asked his accusers. Encyclopaedia of the best refutations. 13. I. 1951: Chicken prices. Payments abroad. (M. the supposed Free Trader, argued again and again as if a political border made an economic difference and as if full monetary freedom would not be the ideal solution for these payments, too. - J.Z., 16.6.03.) Free exchange rates. Robert Conquest & education. Export spleen. Gold coins, their prices & other prices expressed in government paper monies.
IV/22 Gold prices of commodities are much more stable than their paper money prices. The State has failed in all spheres. Mints supplying industry with standardised ingots in the shape of legal gold coins but without stamping them. Regarding their "price" one must distinguish times when they are legal tender from times when the government's paper money is legal tender. Keynes on Bank of England's practice in restricting redemption during WW I. Shopkeepers as issuers. Their relationship with wholesalers. What limits are there for the issue of M's notes for long term loans?
IV/23 Future note-issuing banks will mainly provide means of payment for wages. Before 1844 these banks had nearly nothing to do with that business. Redemptionism restricted them & laws on minimum size for their notes. "Balance of trade". According to the statistics the imports of the world are greater than the exports, although they should be the same. The statistics are flawed and misleading. The gold movements in the world were rarely caused by trade movements. The gold movements were mostly due to the legal right of creditors to demand gold.
IV/24 Devaluation. Popular view of the market. Statism. India & "self-government". "Parliamentarism" in East Germany. Englishmen held relatively few official posts in India. Pariahs. Colour bar goes on in practice. Central banking newly established eliminated private note-issuing banks. "Punch" & "Simplicissimus". 14. I. 1951: Korea.
IV/25 Taxes in kind, already opposed by Adam Smith. Newspapers don't publish opposition to modern money theory, especially Keynesianism. Overpopulation in Italy? The bakers are looking for customers, not the customers for bakers. Defence of Germany. The Germans have to choose between submission or suicide. 14. I. 1951: Refugees refused entry.
IV/26 Those who refused asylum to these refugees had been helped even by their former enemies. Now they refuse to help their own countrymen! No economic "reasons" for such refusals. By a few strokes of the pen there would be created the possibility to supply every man able to work with employment, including all refugees. 15. I. 1951: The "outlawry" of atomic bombs proposed by the Soviets. Their petitions outlawed rather than amended: Russian atomic bombs, too!
IV/27 The importance of discount rates is much overestimated. "Balance of trade". Balancing by the automatic return of paper monies.
IV/28 The balance of trade is always zero if long periods are considered. Trade statistics deserve distrust. 20. I. 51: Eskimos as anarchists. Pricing in gold coins. For Germany pricing in multiples of grams of gold would be best.
IV/29 Free coinage, free bullion market. Why is gold, in times of unrest, preferred to any other commodity? Because its purchasing power is more stable than that of any other commodity. Unfree gold markets. Dr. W. J. Busschau: "The Measure of Gold". Rittershausen: Only one really free bullion market: Tangier. During inflation prices rise in sequence: Precious metals, other metals, wool, cotton & other wholesale commodities. Then retail prices. Official exchange quotations unreliable, e.g. at the Exchange in Paris, 1926/1927. The published quotations often differed from the really paid prices. Reliable are the quotations at New York, were ever single operation is published. Upon strong foreign demand gold coins would disappear from circulation.
IV/30 When paper money is made a forced currency then gold disappears from circulation. They wander from circulation to trade. From trade they cannot disappear. What happens when foreign creditors use their right to demand gold coins? Long-term loans. Payments abroad. Free Banking for wage payments before 1844?
IV/31 Debased coins were used for wage payments. Act of 1844, Adolf Wagner & Lorenz von Stein: There was no system of thought but, rather, a lack of thought behind it. Long-term loans. Balance of trade. Indian democracy, with criminals in government.
IV/32 India, colour bar & religion, Pariahs, caste bar. Brahmans. Human rights, militia & panarchies: Human rights repose not in the individual as a bearer of such rights but in the individual so organised, that his organisation leads him to acknowledge the rights. Rights of rational beings. Rights of animals, vegetarianism. 21. I. 1951: Trees & Malthusianism
IV/33 Forests & free markets for timber, making them profitable. Houses built without timber. Unions & cooperative socialism. Egypt & its peasants. Defence. Mao's method of treating deserters. Union.
IV/34 Forced currency & cours forcé, corso forzoso, forced acceptance & forced value. Danish butt49 policy. Mercantile theory: Man produces not to consumer the product but to export it. Free gold market, inflation
IV/35 Free gold market, gold per head amounts
IV/36 Gold per head. Factors that make gold values more stable than any others. Bombay gold & silver quotes
IV/37 30. I. 1951: Currency, fiat money, legal tender, cours forcé, Zwangskurs, forced currency, tax foundation
IV/38 Nero: debased coins but did not accept his debased coins in payment of taxes. Fiat money, Zwangskurs involves repeal of redemption. Discount rate in Germany. Interest rate, relative unimportance. Payments abroad. Long-term loans. Free Banking, Attwood, wage levels of industrial revolution. 1926 abolition of one pound notes in England. Lord Overstone & Act of 1844.
IV/39 Small number of Indian Nationalists, French Revolution, Carlyle, Nehru, corruption. Gadhi, caste spleen. Foreign exchange control, Danish butter, human rights. Human rightsl & "society". 31. I. 1951: Increased demand for gold leading to depreciation of paper money?
IV/40 Gold redemption before 1914, right of creditors to demand gold. Tax foundation. Hermann von Beckerath, Krefeld banker & Reichsfinanzminister of 1849, earned much by mediating due bills as means of payment against their debtors. (Probably grandfather of B.) Although it is arithmetically the same to say: gold rose or the bills of exchange fell in value, it is not the same economically. Economically the bills fell and gold remained stable. 1. II. 1951: Lombroso & criminal types of men. Schopenhauer & man's development by sexual preferences. Planners vs. Free Trade.
IV/41 Free Trade as a right, free gold market, free currency market, right to issue notes, right to refuse means of payment, monetary despotism. 2. 2. 1951: Rights for humans, animals, plants. Capacity to acknowledge rights. Gall on criminals. Darwin on moral actions among apes. Repentance. Schopenhauer. Fighting for rights. A moral tendency in men. And tendencies can be developed.
IV/42 Kant on rights & revenge. Claims founded on rights are often granted, even if the claimant is completely defeated. They are founded on our mental and psychological organisation, or better nature. They are given, like the form of one's nose. Herd instinct? moral sense? 4. II. 1951: Benn: does not see that at the bottom of all trouble is the money question.
IV/43 Warfare with a money system as the world uses now. Alcohol & abstention. Soberness vs. Tsarism. Change in Chinese mentality due to the elimination of opium. General notions & great conceit. Collective responsibility.
IV/44 Pigou on Keynes. Keynesian clap-trap: As if competition would have to be based upon the biggest and most anti-economic monopoly. How few of a thousand economics textbooks get the relationship between inflation, cours forcé and the note-issue monopoly right? Greek inflation, Canadian trade, definition of inflation
IV/45 Inflation requires forced currency. "Credit-inflation" is only possible if the credit is expressed in fiat money. Velocity of circulation & distrust. Right definition of inflation. Price levels. Assignats. State socialism and money monopoly & monetary despotism. Indiscriminate warfare methods. Refugee streams should be increased!
IV/46 Herodotus on understanding without influence or power. Peace contribution through Free Trade. Pitt's example. "Interpreter" thinks that the coop element in Greene's plan is essential. It is not. Essential is the right of issue and the braking of the government's monopoly for standardised means of payment. Interest is also without importance. If the interest of a Greene-Bank is redistributed, so as the dividend of a life insurance co., then the interest may be nominally as high as possible. Riegel proposes standardised cheques instead of notes. That is the system of the Four Bills. German clearing cheques, i.e. cheques which can be made good only by clearing and not by redemption in cash. Redemption in goods is or leads to clearing, as pointed out by Zander, in his explanation of the Four Bills. Keynes: Took monetary despotism so for granted that he never talked about it. 8. II. 1951: "Thinking too far ahead is a bad thing, and I must confess that I incline towards that bad habit." Schopenhauer, women.
IV/47 Resistance as long as there is a chance. Payments abroad. Foreign exchange controls. Schacht prohibited value preserving clauses. (So did the "currency reform" law of 1948! - J.Z., 17.6.03.)
IV/48 Foreign exchange controls. Long-term loans. Denmark: export prices vs. internal prices. Gold payments before 1914.
IV/49 Zwangskurs, cours forcé, forced currency. Italy, after 17 years, repealed its cours forcé in 1883. Human rights. 15. II. 1951: R. G. Hawtrey, "Currency & Credit": Turgot's notes of the Caisse d'Ecompte, 1776, were forced currency. Necker followed his example. Forced circulation - term for forced acceptance. Keynes. Gold coins & Reichsbank
IV/50 Havenstein and the introduction of legal tender & cours forcé, 1910, in Germany. Intentionally, to prepare for the next war! Gold clauses abrogated in 1914. Laws did not apply to foreign creditors. Probably, inflation of German paper money led finally to prohibitions for foreigners by their governments against accepting German paper money and led then to dollar shortages & foreign exchange controls in Germany. Free gold market: bullion market, department gold. Gold market in Tangier. Long-term loans. Gold per head. Quantity of goods for sale.
IV/51 Rights, property rights, respect for rights. 18. II. 1951: Dollar quotations in Germany, October 1923
IV/52 Hungarian inflation the largest ever? Housing finance. "The Statist". The black market is the only honest market. People, who today buy gold are not "speculators" but the very contrary. Gold wire and silver wire as an auxiliary currency. Leonard E. Read, "Outlook for Freedom". Anti-monopolism, independence. "analysis". Is Russia free from depressions?
IV/53 Pressing men into mercantile fleets as well as into the navy. Soviets do the same, pressing men as forced labourers into their concentration camps. Unemployed used forced labourers ("Arbeitsdienst") and as informers, like before in Turkey until 1980, in Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany. Planning & unemployment. Robinson Crusoe & Friday: No depressions for them. Why not? Sales or acceptance of their product was never a problem. Order system, commitments. Coops & price reductions. Income of members would be reduced but none of them would become unemployed. The now existing difficulties in changing one's occupation or job is another very effective cause of unemployment. Legal claim of workers to get their wages in legal tender & unemployment. Payment of wages in clearing cheques. Suggested book title: "The organisation of society in which continuous but step by step fallen prices do continuously improve the standard of living and tend to continuous employment.
IV/54 Unemployment caused by monopolies. Revolutions and their terror connected to inflation & it is not possible without a forced currency. Freely floating exchange rates. Keynes the monopolist and coercer. Heffernan. Gold & silver production.
IV/55 23. II. 1951: Emerson, morality & civilisation, institutions, fiat money & criminality. Honest money diminishes crime. Nehru, Afghanistan. Governments in exile with a program. Prof. Johannes Scherr, Das rote Quartal, on Paris Commune. Voting, participation rate.
IV/56 Paris commune. If more voters had voted … Militia of Paris & Thiers. Moratorium. (Unemployment was high. The unemployed got at least some payment as militia members. When most were dismissed, they were unemployed without any income: Tinder waiting for a spark. - If I remember my reading correctly. - J.Z., 17.6.03.)
What could or should have been done?
IV/57 27. II. 1951: Radio broadcasting & advertisements. Unemployment in West Germany. Refugees. All could be rapidly employed if all monetary laws would be repealed. Are Europeans less intelligent than 100 years ago? (Most of the revolutionaries of 1848 did not reveal much intelligence, either! - J.Z., 17.6.03.) Banks should be absolutely free. The few which misuse their liberty will soon disappear and the rest would fulfil their tasks. Bank lending and degree of unemployment. Turn-over credits vs. capital credits.
IV/58 Confinement of notes to large denominations did largely eliminate them for wage payments. Long-term loans and employment. Employment depends mainly upon financing current production and bringing the products to the consumers. Hertzka: "Freiland", 1889: Sales obstacles must be removed. Producing more unsaleable goods does not improve the situation. Redemptionism made note issues a bad and even dangerous business. Employment in Germany was largely financed by its store of coins, not by notes. The existence of a store of coins is not sufficient to provide employment for all.
IV/59 All errors on the subject found their ways into the new prescriptions on banking, imposed on Germany after 1945. Deposit banking. Cours forcé. Medieval laws granted the sentenced the right to scold the sentence for half an hour, according to Zander. Value fluctuations. Gold is the least evil. Rittershausen. Savigny: Obligationenrecht. Jevons.
IV/60 Jevons remained an adherent of gold because he studied it. Monopoly. Natural monopolies. Marshal. Ordering system. Keynes. 2. III. 1951: Redemptionism.
IV/61 Free circulation of sovereigns: Four questions on details: As legal tender, as exclusive value standard? Free choice of value standards? Shall creditors get the right to claim them or only the right to be paid gold values? Free coinage? Precedents. Payment in kind up to certain gold values. Persian precedent.
IV/62 Mint monopoly? Delays can amount to prohibitions. Circulation of foreign coins. Prussian precedent. Redemptionism, free note issue. Monetary revolution with the Lord Mayor of London at top?
IV/63 Kimmitt, Johnston & Alexander proposal for City of London, further discussed. Free gold market. Four Bills. German law of 1923 on value-preserved mortgages.
IV/64 Vram Pilossian. Persion copper ore deposits, Cambodia. Melting pot for gold coins only used where paper money is fiat money. No modern author, following Ricardo's example, speaks of forced currency and its consequences.
IV/65 Foreign exchange control, always only for fiat money. Speculation? Over-issue of fiat money. "Giro Banks" of Amsterdam and Hamburg: Stuart's report. Sovereigns in Greece. Over-issue? That word does not exist in a government's vocabulary. Nor do the people care about over-issues. Lack of theory does not make a practical man.
IV/66 Non-comprehension towards the fundamental reforms required. Reichsbank spent a milliard gold marks in 1923 to "prop up" the Reichsmark. Purchasing power of Gold in Greece increases during its inflation. Gold as a life-saver for Jews fleeing from prosecution in Middle Ages. M.'s proposal to redeem notes at a fixed value and not at a fixed weight of gold.
IV/67 Four bills. Dr. Unger & Dr. Ramin on fluctuations in the value of gold. Legal tender & forced currency not quite the same. Cours forcé & cours légal. Foreign exchange control and gold price in paper money, indirect influence, in 12 steps.
IV/68 In May 1922 the purchasing power of gold in Germany was 5 times greater than in 1913. In the USA it had not changed much. A real clearing need snot gold. If gold is required then it is not a real clearing. "Let the price of gold rise"? Once the forced currency is repealed, paper money will get a discount on the free market. The standard coin was never quoted on the Exchange. Notes were quoted, with their value being expressed in parts or multiples of sovereigns.
IV/69 Letter by Alexander of 24. 1. 1951. 4. III. 1951: Irving Fisher: "Making of Index Numbers".
IV/70 Index numbers. Sharing of price variations between creditors and debtors. Government index numbers use controlled prices. Black market prices closer to real prices. The official or "normal" market is not readily supplied. Gsell (Gesell) party in German & Switzerland & US. They continue to demand a tyrannical system that uses official index numbers. They began to demand it when official maximum prices did not yet play a role in economics. Bombay rare metal prices, 1951. Official gold price for gold in London.
IV/71 Crises before the "Keynesian Age", George Winder's view. Unemployment in 19th century, & 17th century Italy & Belgium in 1790. London monetary revolution involving the Lord Mayor, via meetings & petition: London declared as an independent district concerning the monetary standard, reopening of the Royal Mint & announcement that everybody may coin his gold ingots under the conditions of 1913 at that Mint. It would be an impressive beginnings. Alas, Kimmitt, Johnston & Alexander just talked, all too vaguely - and did nothing. Working hours.
IV/72 Several optimal lengths of working time, considered from standpoints of high output, people's health and quality of product. Atrocities during German post WW I revolution. Cruelty is regularly observed during civil wars. Social & economic effect? Zero! King-Hall reports terrible details on American warfare in Korea. Suicide by starvation.
IV/73 Redemption on the bullion market! 5. III. 1951: G. D. H. Cole: "A Short History of the British Working-Class Movement", reports on circulation of Owen's Labour Notes. Copyrights. C. R. Fay: "Life and Labour in the 19th Century", reports that in 1819 the shortage of small coins was so large that labourers were paid in bulk, with large notes, which they had to split at the nearest pub. The Truck Act of 1831 prohibited payment in notes of Banks more than 15 miles distant.
IV/74 Malthus mentions wages of 18 pence to 2 shillings per day as typical for his time. Lady Vierkandt recommends Nathaniel Gubbins: "Dear Pig", London 1948, as one of the most amusing books ever written. 7. III. 1951: Aggression & intervention, Fichte's view. B.'s view: Every citizen & every group of citizen has the right to intervene against oppressors.
IV/75 Communism on aggression, defence & liberation. Hertzka: "Freiland". Negroes & Whites. 11. III. 1951: On Johnston & Alexander correspondence.
IV/76 The country's need for currency cannot be supplied merely by freely circulating gold coins. Four Bills, Bill No. IV. What shall be legal tender if precious metal does not circulate & notes are at a discount? Settlement by clearing. Warner's solution the same in his "The Currency Famine of 1893".
IV/77 Clearing of bills in Germany. "Gegengeschaeft". For the financing of present goods against future goods - still to be produced - the German banking theory demanded that it must be performed through interest-bearing bonds etc., not notes. In practice this rule was sometimes violated, especially in the years before 1932. Rittershausen wrote a very good book on it.
IV/78 Acceptance foundation is missing for notes issued to grant long-term loans with them. Refusal of notes that are at a discount and do not have shop-foundation acceptance at par.
IV/79 DeWitt Warner. M.'s aim is primarily the financing of production and not of sales. Right middle course described by Zander in his "Railway Money". Railway Minister Oeser: Oeser-Scheine for about 1,500 million gold marks. 15. III. 1951: Stirner. Bruno Bauer. Duty. Highest duty? Criticism! Accept nothing because an authority said it. Reject all doctrines not founded on reason. Societies for the reprint of scarce old tracts. CD-ROM option for this today. Bruno Bauer & his brother Edgar contributed much to overthrow the old theology in Germany. Edgar demonstrated that Seneca through his correspondence with Paulus, probably not a falsification, must be considered as the true founder of Christendom.
IV/80 Arthur Kitson: "The Banker's Conspiracy". Its flaws. (One of his first books: "The Money Question" is worth reading as an attack on the money issue monopoly.) Alan Greenspan. Right to refuse acceptance of paper money. The neglect of this right is the last cause of all our evils. Gold coins are not sufficient as currency. Redemptionism.
IV/81 Resemblance of cause and effect law to old Jehovah, as it punishes seldom the sinner but, primarily, his children, other relatives, subjects, followers. It uses the principle of collective responsibility. Monetary liberty ought to be among the world's most fundamental laws. Tax foundation money, discovered in Saxonia in the 18th century, about 1740. Tax Anticipation Certificates. Rittershausen collected the older laws on this: PEACE PLANS 641. Means to keep the nominal value of paper money without cours forcé on a par with precious metal.
IV/82 Jevons mentions tax foundation money as an American invention, also in the 18th century. It, too, can keep notes at par with old without cours forcé. (Legal tender, in today's interpretation, usually combines cours forcé with cours légal. - J.Z., 17.6.03.) Rittershausen: The principle of value through readiness to accept at par. Treasury Notes. Lorenz von Stein on tax foundation. Distrust hardly affects this kind of paper money. With it there cannot be a run in the usual sense. Gold value instead of gold coins. Value-preserved investment opportunities needed. IV/83 Kitson went from monetary freedom to monetary despotism. Treasury Notes. Usually not valued in gold weight units. US Civil War Bonds with gold value clauses. WW I & Germany's legal tender law. Right to refuse acceptance of paper money was not sufficiently discussed in England. E.g., not by Sir Robert Peel.
IV/84 Criticism of Peel. The best investigation, although not published, is one by Zander. Clearing in Peel's time. German commercial usage re: a) legal tender, which a debtor may force upon his creditor and b) legal object of demand by creditor. English legal theory does not seem to deal with the matter. The French does. Right of the people to refuse paper money. Union functionaries and Labour Party leaders.
IV/85: Eight current monetary opinions Individualists should criticise. 17. III. 1951: Marcus Aurelius, Caesar, Pacing while thinking.
IV/86 The true source of employment is the own wants of the employed. Wants must be permitted to appear as demand, to the extent that one is able and willing to supply wanted services in exchange. Current wants must be satisfied by current production. During crises the formerly employed are separated from plants already existing. The question then arises: How to bring the men back to their machines and not: How to finance fresh plants and machines. If that is true, then employment for the unemployed is not solved by the raising of long-term loans. One exception: When goods are not consumed and in danger of becoming spoilt. I such a case its advisable to lend out the goods in form of long-term loans rather than see them wasted. Mrs. Johanna Boedeker & Geheimrate Wohlmannstetter.
IV/87 Short description of long-term loans of the above indicated kind. First hint towards that method B. found in a book of Hertzka. Cours forcé, forced currency and fiat money. Better words desirable. Falling value of money. Price fluctuations as the valves of the economy. To be distinguished those caused from the money side and those caused from the goods side. Jevons held that neither creditors not debtors want protection against the latter. Dr. Ramin formula on a value preserving clause. Two suggestions by B. on this.
IV/88 By 1830 B. had not yet investigated price developments in connection with harvests etc., for the very years for which other economists believe to have observed a gold-caused inflation. Also he had not calculated the per head increases of gold and found out how trifling they were. The State buys gold - at its unrealistic price - but does not sell it. Gold flows were possible in the past mainly because creditors were entitled to demand gold. (During the Great Inflation in Germany gold also went there because its purchasing power then and there was extraordinary. - J.Z., 17.6.03.) Coining in London by order of the Lord Mayor, that would have been a matter of no less consequence than the revolution of 1688. Greek inflation and official gold policy there. Emerson on civilisation and morality.
IV/89 CGT questionnaire of 1905 to all union workers. Among them the question which motivated B. for most of his life: "With what will you pay your bread, your other victuals, your bus, etc., the day after the revolution? Suppose that all currency disappears on this day from circulation, as will, very probably, happen. 21. III. 1951:
Refugees & corruption in Berlin. Unemployment, refugees & cheap commodities in East Berlin.
IV/90 The problem is not seen in the right light. Only false solutions are proposed and practised. 22. III. 1951: Jews & Arabs: Nationalism is the same thing among all peoples. Communism in China. Who among the Anti-communists has published a sketch of an attractive alternative constitution for China? All past ones neglected the means of payment problem. The reformers might follow the existing texts and merely modify some paragraphs, thereby immediately pointing out the flaws of the existing one. "But, among the thousands, who could do such a work not one performs it. What an age in which we live!" (An Ideas Archive is missing. It would also market better ideas and would attract them. - J.Z., 17.6.03.)
IV/91: Starvation during the Great German Inflation. The currency stabilisation took place on Nov. 19th 1923. A few weeks later the conditions of 1913 were largely restored. Before that date people believed commodities were missing. But nothing was short except sound currencies. (Even the many sound emergency currencies then issued were not numerous and voluminous enough to supply enough sound currency! Their issuers still fumbled and stumbled, too, in all too many cases. - J.Z., 17.6.03.) Deflation after the Big Inflation. One significant factor contributing to it: Tax funds hoarded in public funds and delayed there before being spent again. Repeal of all modern money laws. Land reform: unification of all too spread small parcels (Flurbereinigung), in England, Prussia and Japan. Why was it not done by mutual agreement? (I suspect the red tape, fees & taxes involved in official land titles was a major obstacle. - J.Z., 17.6.03.) Mathematics & economics. C. Bresciani -Turroni, Walras, Jevons, Pareto, Prof. Riebesell. Proofs that a liberal order of society must work best. Nazis were right, from their standpoint, to prohibit lectures on mathematical economics. Old gold standard.
IV/92 India not liberated by the new regime. Russian gold output & corruption of Western officials. Capitalism or Anti-monopolism? If Tucker had not insisted on calling his system "anarchism", then "Tuckerism" would be a good name for what is needed now. Football.
IV/93 Trade & the right to issue standardised means of payment, to use standards like gold, to oblige oneself to accept means of payment as one would accept gold coins, if one sells one's labour's products. Price controls since 4,500 years. Price edicts of Diocletian. Gold prices then about the same as those of the 19th century. Lexis. Interest in house building. Building & Loans Associations.
IV/94 Malthusianism and Division of Labour effect, as expressed by G. B. Shaw. Japan's fish production. What can I do? Tucker: "… issuing their own money in defiance of legal prohibition". Here is the means to liberate Russia, China, all others. If Tucker would have written nothing else than this single line, he would already have been the greatest of all economists.
IV/95 King Solomon & his temple. Korean agrarian reform by the Communists. Praised by King-Hall and B. agreed. (So what caused starvation there, in recent years? With land distribution is not enough without a free market for produce, under planning, price controls, quotas, red tape, insufficient property incentives etc. Free competition for all land reform systems practised among their supporters, at their expense and risk! - J.Z., 17.6.03.) Refugees, freedom of note issue, loans on a gold basis and exterritorial autonomy for them and all others desiring it. Strasser. Kan'ts four kinds of thinking & 12 categories.
IV/96 German "co-determination-movement". Most people use only one category in their thinking. Bureaucracy begins to occupy itself with the other categories, although in an extremely primitive manner. Thereby it rules over workers & employers. 24. III. 1951: Did women contribute anything to monetary theory? Young Gauss & young Pascal. 25. III. 1951: Marcus Aurelius. Safe deposits and deposits for the lending business.
IV/97 It is not self-evident that 100 coins, given as a loan, must be repaid in form of coins. Law of Hammurabi. Marcus Aurelius introduced set-off. But most laws are legally still in the same state in which Hammurabi found the Babylonians ones. The whole theory of metallic "redemption" is based on the old pre-Hammurabian prejudice. Schlieman & Troy. Long-term loans. Machinery & unemployment. The fresh employment created by machines is the aspect not seen. Trade union rules prevent many job changes.
IV/97 Balance of trade. As a rule countries are not partners in trading. Gold redemption. Not obligatory for all banks but optional. Minorities and real or pretended suppression. Stirner. Value by readiness to accept at par. Let systems compete. Right to refuse the acceptance of paper money must be the basis of a good theory of money. Open market policy and relation of gold to notes. Note of 1793:
IV/99 The note seems to have been issued against the law. That is pleasing. The issuer promises to pay, although the thing, which he promises to pay, is very scarce. He should have added: "If I possess the cash" and: "In every case, I accept the note in my business so as I would accept cash." Honesty as a factor. 28. III. 1951: Morale in war. Napoleon I, conscription.
IV/100 Volunteers in WW I and in other wars were generally believed to be of a lesser morale than the conscripts. Reputation of mercenaries & professional soldiers and even of some volunteer militias. Generally the tendency to sell is much stronger than the tendency to buy. (That, too, may be related to monetary despotism. Under rapid inflation it is not a general tendency. Then this rule is reversed. - J.Z., 17.6.03.) Export spleen. Mao's regime demands the arrival of imports before permitting exports. Dollar-Gap, under false and enforced exchange rates, quotas, permits etc.
IV/101 Credit insurance. Liquidations. Not number of liquidations is decisive but sums that are lost. Figures may also merely indicate the take-over of a number of small firms. Increased advances by Banks need not be dangerous. When they get more money from investors than it is not unnatural or dangerous for them to lend more money to their debtors. Dumping of cheap Japanese shirts.
IV/102 Trade with Japan. Dumping is impossible if the means of payment is convertible into goods only. For Full employment policy. (Yes, but not by government and through Keynesianism! - J.Z., 17.6.03.) Paper money: Private optional paper money with a sound acceptance foundation should be distinguished from government paper money with forced acceptance and forced value & insufficient tax foundation.
IV/103 Government policies towards capital. Monetary & financial revolution required. Paying wages in sovereigns? Goethe: The invention of bills of exchange - which emancipated many people from gold and other cash - seems to have been a very essential element in the development of Italy in the Middle Ages. 31. III. 1951:
Generalities, facts & doctrines.
IV/104 Unemployment and capital. In the case of economic crises the capital is unemployed, too! Only in wars and natural catastrophes is it destroyed. General J. F. C. Fuller on Marshall Plan. In cases of vast destructions capital is needed. In unemployment and general sales crises the crises must be attacked from the side of selling or selling and buying, which requires the answer to: How to restore the purchasing power of the consumer? Generally production arranges itself if buying is not handicapped. Not the man buys. His means of payment buy. Only the possession and use of suitable means of payment permit the transformation of want into demand. This transformation is the central problem of the present state of culture and civilisation.
IV/105 Will banks that finance primarily production by long-term loans and low interest - sufficiently finance the consumer and sufficiently transform his want into demand? While the provision of capital finance also makes many consumers financial, there remains a gap, one great enough to require special attention and means to fill it. It is dangerous enough as a possible cause for a sales crisis. (A greater output does not assure more sales but might merely lead to greater stockpiles and more unsold consumer goods. - J.Z., 17.6.03.) B. suggests here only the order system to fill that gap, not mentioning the issue of shop foundation money, used in wage payments, to assure sales, although generally he advocated both.
IV/106 1. IV. 1951: On a gold deal of one central bank to another. Foreign exchange control. Vietnam (Indo-China -Annam). Unemployment, central banking, private armies & tax foundation money. Spiritualism, augurs, Constantin.
IV/107 Devaluation & price rises, Wagemann. Emergency money: twopence banknote. Kitson, "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion": A Russian forgery. Its nonsense on gold, gold standard and Jews. 3. 4. 1951:
IV/108 Free gold markets: Not even Tangier quite free. Without them credit is destroyed, consequently capital supply for building etc. Housing shortage. Prohibition of gold clauses. Malthusianism. Zander. Gold standards. King Solomon & the conquest of Palestine by Egypt. Women & money questions. (Still: For every woman writer on this subject here are, probably, at least ten men. But then women writers on any subject are more rare than male writers. - J.Z., 18.6..03.)
IV/109 Marcus Aurelius. Deposits & interest. Machines & employment. Exports & gold payments. Balance of trade. Wrongly applied to nations. Aggression. République Supranationale. Wangenheim, 1908, on gold supplies from Germany
IV/110 It is possible to send those who want gold to the gold market and yet keep notes at par with their nominal gold weight value. Distrust & discounts. The effect of new money depends on its quality of being a forced currency or not and upon nothing else. Four Bills rule on issues. Sound issues up to their limits cannot raise prices but a smaller issue may cause a deflation.
IV/111 5. 4. 1951: Depreciation by bad management and depreciation by the government's monetary policy. Not one Building Society ever protested against the present forced currency. (Not one social insurance company in Germany, or savings bank or general insurance company, either, as far as I know! -Like sheep they follow their "Fuehrers" into monetary and financial disasters. - J.Z., 18.6.03.) Scratchley on Building Society Finance Principle. "Truth" considered the State Israel as a Jewish Nazi State. Atrocities on both sides, Arabs & Jews, reveal a Nazi mentality on both sides, at least among their radical minorities. (As modern territorialists both sides have largely forgotten their best tradition, that of exterritorially autonomous communities, which would offer a just and peaceful solution for their present troubles. - J.Z., 18.6.03.)
IV/112 Soviets monopolised ownership of and trade in gold. Missing gold? A free gold market replaces the greatest stock of gold. (It offers the greatest gold redemption fund for exchange media standing at par and properly evaluates those that are depreciated. - J.Z., 18.6.03.) Swiss population & note circulation, its gold value per head.
IV/113 Official vs. real prices for gold, reckoned in government paper money. Effect of full employment and affordable housing on marriages. 7. IV. 1951: Conscription, experience, rights, duty.
IV/114 Conscripts vs. volunteers. Some of B.'s war experience in WW I. Kant. China & its transportation facilities: Famine in one district and abundance in others. Mao. Luxury. Before England's economy was "planned" by the State, she was, at the end of all here wars, richer than before the war.
IV/115 Dumping of shirts, trade with Japan. A money convertible into goods, where it is accepted, brings, within a short time, the industry of the country to a condition where this industry makes only goods in which it is superior to other countries. Full employment as an aim. Crises and a free economy. Truck system & truck shops & truck tokens. Sound currency developments prevented by complete prohibitions.
IV/116 New money & rising prices. Roscher: 3 kinds of prices to be distinguished here, in relation to the type of currency supply. How much optional and free market rated money would a country accept? Example of the potato seller.
IV/117 Example of the potato seller continued, fiat money, price controls, rationing. Monetary aspects overlooked by Tucker, Greene et al. Payment communities & panarchies.
IV/118 11. 4. 1951: Morgan, his hoists also priced in sovereigns. Roscher says that fine gold would give the same service in circulation as an alloy of gold. Tradition of token money. Private coinage. Readiness to accept foundation. Common Law.
IV/119 12. 4. 1951: China's agriculture, land distribution, tools, leases. Italian coops: As important examples as free note issues in Britain before 1844, USA before 1863 and Germany in the 19th century. 22. IV. 1951:
IV/120 Deposits & safe deposits. Laws of Corpus Juris on this is flawed but, nevertheless, taken over by modern legislation. Zander. French banking laws permit the handing over of securities the banks had invested in, in case of a run. Everyone, who has opened an account with the Bank must sign the rules, confirming his agreement. Now a run can do no harm. Private gold purchases & payments. Balance of trade. Interest & note circulation. Dumping. New money & rising prices.
IV/121 Gold price system. Scarcity of wheat in India & price controls. Thiers: "Histoire de la Révolution Francaise. He was clear on the effect of forced currency. Four results listed.
IV/122 French Revolution terror regime connected to Assignats issues and price controls. V. R. Kimmitt, "The London Newsletter", to Meulen, 15. 4. 1951: On paper pound and gold sovereign. Gold bullion standard.
IV/123 B.'s comment to it of 22. 4. 1951: 7 points. 5.) Fiduciary money is never backed by a government gold stock but by the readiness of the government to accept it for taxes. 28. 4. 1951: US foreign exchange laws.
IV/124 Macaulay: "Frederic the Great": 1/7th of the males able to do military service were constantly soldiers. They were maintained without government debts or debasement of the currency and without an income tax in the modern sense. Today an army of about 2 % of the population cannot be maintained without inflation, increase in public debt and taxation. However, the pay of F.'s soldiers was incredibly small. Number of births increases with the poverty of those married. Families that never really suffer from hunger tend to die out, e.g. the aristocracy that conquered England under William I. A large population, merely by its size, increases the wealth per head unless government measures & actions prevent this. The increase in wealth decreases the fertility, although not at once, to zero growth. Thus a natural maximum is attained, estimated at 6 - 20 thousand millions. The former quite obviously too small. The present population movement is nothing more than the tendency to attain the natural optimum. 30. 4. 1951: Free gold market, internally & externally. The supposed difference between foreign & internal trade is a prejudice and where differences are observed, they are the result of that prejudice. Protectionism. "Buy British", "Buy Germany". Free Trade.
IV/125 The conceit of rulers & the slave mentality of their subjects. Kant: International govt. only for purposes that cannot be achieved without a govt. Are there such? Free Trade & Christians. Kant: Atheists must also be Cosmopolitans. Man's nature and reason lead to a Commonwealth including all men, as the most valuable of all goods, more valuable than individual life. Quite new principles follow from this. For B. such theorising led to solutions for the monetary, trade and political problems, not excluding such intricate ones as the treatment of minor Indian people. Money reformers must use appropriate terminology to become understood. "Forced currency being the real basis of all our evils." (Only if one includes here the "forced currency" of the existence and acceptance at their face value of territorial governments as well. - J.Z.) Rittershausen. Keynes depreciated his writings to nearly zero by not distinguishing money endowed with forced currency and other money.
IV/126 Gold coins insufficient for all payments in England. As Lubbock pointed out, 100 years ago, much more than 90% of England's internal payments are not performed by cash. When all governments introduced in 1914 a forced currency, they did so with the intention to fill out the gap necessarily produced by the disappearance of gold from circulation. They knew no better means and economists did not propose other means. That train of ideas was expressed by Havenstein before the Currency Commission of 1808. The circulation of gold coins must be completed by a circulation of notes or standardised clearing cheques, etc. When gold coins are permitted the gold pricing will follow and also token money accepted like gold coins. Competition will force note-issuing bankers to keep their notes at par with their nominal gold weight value otherwise than by gold metal redemptionism. For their notes will not be forced currency but refusable and discountable. Adolf Wagner, Lorenz von Stein and Michaelis. Trust is not sufficient. Under monetary freedom: What kind of means of payment shall a creditor be entitled to demand from his debtor?
IV/127 What kind of payment must a creditor accept, when sovereigns are rare and the right to refuse notes is acknowledged? B. discussed this with Zander. Sir Robert Peel's view, the standpoint of almost all people, laws and economists. Its erroneous presupposition. "Market price" of gold for M. was always a paper money price. The situation is very different when all goods, services, wages & other contracts are priced in sovereigns and paid by sovereigns or other means of exchange that are equivalent to them. Marx on legal tender or forced currency. Gold standard: New terms required. Wage and price spiral.
IV/128 Nossig investigated wages in Basel from 1800 - 1900. He found that typical wages, expressed in precious metal, were about 7 times higher in 1900 than in 1800, while the prices were largely still the same. He thus disproved the feared wage-price-spiral hypothesis. Law of a geometrical series. In cases like this it has an indefinite number of terms and yet its sum is a definite value. The old Greeks could have discovered the law of this series by reflecting, without prejudice, upon the "paradox" of "Achilles and the turtle". But even today average people still think unconsciously: A series with an infinite number of terms must produce an infinite sum. Another aspect: High sales costs. They are reduced when the income of buyers increases. 30. 4. 1951: Extracts on "dumping" from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Most of its prescriptions are not applicable to goods paid by means of payment of domestic origin that do not promise foreign exchange.
IV/129 Complaining unemployed are more feared than invaded armies. (And yet governments can offer only palliatives not cures & yet neither the governments nor the unemployed themselves are sufficiently interested to study real cures & pretended cures and the difference between them. - J.Z., 18.6.03.) In 1789 Paris had 200,000 unemployed among 600,000 inhabitants. 1. 5. 1951: Election laws in Germany, selection of candidates. Elections within panarchies. Woman parliament in old Rome, under later emperors. Such an institution would be better than the present parliaments mixed of women and men. Balance of trade.
IV/130 Balance of trade. Gold payments. Interest & note circulation. Industrial use of gold. Prices during a crisis. M.'s invariable unit system.
IV/131 Price differentials in different districts. India's wheat scarcity & corruption by officials. 3. 5. 1951: Jevons: What trouble is greater: New laws to compensate for fluctuations in purchasing power of gold or let things go on? His view was that new laws would be the greater evil. What degree of variation is large enough so that a just legislator or judge must make allowance for this variation? Dawes Agreements. German supreme court decision.
IV/132 Jevons, Scrope, Lowe. Immense literature on the adjustment of debts to the price level. Index numbers. Irving Fisher. The possibility of a sudden very large supply of gold, by new mines etc. was always considered as given by Jevons & B. It will always be necessary to distinguish between the substance of the money unit in use for immediate payments and the variations of prices in respect to deferred payments. Best clause invented so far is that of Dr. Ramin. Ladislaus von Bortkewitsch, Univ. of Berlin, published in 1925 a survey of modern Russian literature on index numbers and the theory of deferred payments. The journal no longer exists. Agreements among debtors and creditors on this.
IV/133 9. 5. 1951: Radio noise one of the great misfortunes of B.'s life. Constant radio noise effect upon thinking tends to produce barbarism, according to a pre-WW II article in "Temps". (Even its songs usually merely confirm popular prejudices. A Melbourne anarchists, whom I met in 1986 asserted that classical music stimulated thinking while rock music suppressed it. True or false? I can read and write by music that I like. - J.Z., 18.6.03.) Voting systems. (The territorial aspect of all voting systems is wrong. Exterritorially applied, i.e., only among volunteer communities, they would be rightful and might even be useful to some of them. - J.Z., 18.6.03.) Gold ingots and the "invariable unit".
IV/134 Gold-pricing as the least evil. The best test of attained improvement is practice, even if merely in a restricted sphere. Full liberty for all to try their own systems at the own cost and risk. Redemption systems can be honest - if nothing impossible is promised in them. Three ways to maintain parity.
IV/135 Gold coins as currency. Note clearing. Discount of notes. Means of payment a creditor is entitled to demand.
IV/136 Wage price spiral. Parliament of women. Gold payments. Purchasing power of gold in times of unrest.
IV/137 The phenomena caused by forced currency cannot be considered as economic laws for communities where there is no forced currency. Interest-rate and note-issue. Invariable unit. How Runge saved B.'s life in 1942. Mussolini.
IV/138 12. V. 1951: Finance of trade unions, compared with costs of insurance companies. Disraeli proposed Dehli as the capital for the British Empire. Difference in quantities & qualities of food consumption in "planned" vs. somewhat free economies.
IV/139 Russians as intelligent and honest black market merchants. Shakespeare, Bacon or Marlowe? Famine in India, while credit is permitted only on a paper rupee basis. Malthusianism. Corruption in Japan: Ill paid officials are always bribed. (Well-paid bureaucrats may be even more bribably. They have more favours to dispense and their "prices" for them are higher. - J.Z.) Summer time. Deregulation & time limits for legislation etc. Jefferson & Paine proposed sunset-laws. But even that rule could not sufficiently cope with the mass production of wrongful laws and regulations. Freedom for individuals & minorities to opt out from under them! Gold coin wages as a right? Very dangerous proposal. Gold-value wages - a good thing, provided prices in shops are gold value prices.
IV/140 Free gold market, the first requirement of a real gold standard. Repealing the Charter of the Bank of England. What may a worker demand from his debtor, the employer, in case of a currency famine? If conventional gold bugs temporarily win then monetary despotism is likely to be re-introduced soon, because of the flaws ramaining in the old redemptionist gold standard system. Study Warner's system of self-help with clearing certificates. "The Currency Famine of 1893". Convertibility at the nominal value, on demand and by the issuer, or even with an option clause, is an impossible thing in times of a crisis, for notes that are only fractionally covered.
IV/141 Revaluation. Non-coercive currency reform. Prof. Ludwig Heinrich von Jacob's 1821 book on this. A reprint of his "Staatsfinanzwissenschaft" would be worthwhile. Prague: Bribery has been almost wiped out! Character or organisational change? Stock market prices and inflation.
IV/142 German credit restrictions. Impossibility to discuss them quite frankly and with sound conclusions in German media. Central Banking represents a popular faith. A paper propagating daily, weekly, monthly, the nine monetary liberties could, perhaps, still help.
IV/143 Governmentalism and the economy. Economic development primarily the responsibility of the country itself? A country cannot be responsible. Only the thinking - or the deciding - part of a country can be responsible. Indian coop movement initiated by English cooperators. Reaction by Brahmans and Zemindars: Murder. (Short-term leases and remaining monetary despotism remained major obstacles for cooperators. - J.Z., 18.6.03.) Greece, gold & paper money. Distribution of property in Egypt. Leadership and maturity. Knowledge of and interest in the own affairs. Absent at top and bottom. US constitution: In the year 1787 coining meant manufacturing coins. It did not mean prohibiting coins.
IV/144 US constitution did not even provide a monopoly to Congress for coining. The Dollar was created as late as 1792. Other coins continued for many years to be legal tender, too, according to the value relations fixed by Congress. If after 1787 Congress would have dared to debase the value of the currency, it would have been the President's duty to arrest Congress and impeach it for high treason. (Can any government institution be a sufficient guardian for a monopolised currency and value standard? - J.Z., 18.6.03.) The long history between money and banknotes is fully reproduced in the monthly "Sound Currency", volumes 1895 & 1896.
IV/145 Kant's 12 categories. The "Interpreter" asserted that there are 13 but did not indicate them. Aristotle. Life insurance and "safe" investments.
IV/146 Inflation should not be ascribed to "government" but to its forced currency. Dearness. Mildred Loomis. 24. 5. 1951: Radio: a wonderful invention per se - without its abuse by some. Payments to a creditor during crises, money shortages or currency famines. Legal tender law in Germany. Havenstein. War finance.
IV/147 Margins in long-term contracts. Gold price at Paris. Gottfried Keller: "Das verlorene Lachen" on quarrelling between husbands and wives when both are intellectuals. (Note on the reverse side is missing!) 25. 5. 1951: Open air sculpture. Modern art. Such degenerations announce bloodshed, atrocities, devastations and indifference among the people. The same in Germany before Hitler arrived. Christian Morgenstern. B. condemned his verses as completely crazy & asserted that all intellectuals knew them by heart. (Many of his verses and aphorisms may be judged "crazy" but there are a at least some pearls among them. I quoted some. - J.Z.)
IV/148: Quotes from Morgenstern continued. Moscow & Peace. Russian mentality. Germans turning back German refugees.
IV/149 54,113 were granted asylum last year but for 83,280 it was refused. Thus not even freedom of movement was recognised for these Germans by "free" West German governments. (Even the Nazis welcomed Germans from all other countries, unless they were political opponents or Jews, etc., who were, naturally, wise enough not to flee there. - J.Z., 18.6.03.) Accept every person, without investigation, and provide him with employment. A year later the East would be a corpse without a soul. Naturally, our planners don't know how to provide employment. (Nor do their victims. Nor do either the bureaucrats nor their victims sufficiently ponder this problem. - J.Z., 18.6.03.) 28. V. 1951: Inflation, dearness, forced currency. Many kinds of interest. Enemies of interest have insufficient interest in all the different forms of interest which are in the public interest.
IV/150 Strasser. Wallenstein caught & released General Arnim. Blamed by the Emperor for this he replied: Such an ox at the head of hostile armies saves your Majesty many thousands of soldiers. Remer: More dangerous since his party was forbidden. Thinking in military terms regarding the control of a population. Unemployed officers a danger. Contact between high German officers, like Seekt, & the Soviets. That they might write against Bolshevism proves nothing. Hitler profited from Stalin's attacks and Stalin from Hitler's. But their personal relations were not bad and Hitler prohibited all personal attacks on Stalin. What would help would be a program to abolish unemployment (See B.'s "Berlin Program", microfiched by me. - J.Z.) and a paper talking about it at least once a month.
IV/151 Nazis and Allies air raided private houses rather than furnaces. Compared with bombardment of Paris in 1871. Free Trade, including Free Banking, will supply the country and every sphere of it with a sufficient quantity of sound means of payment. The long history of the truck system in all countries, still unwritten, proves the impossibility to provide sufficient means of payment consisting of an "exclusive currency". Equal pay for equal work? Beaumarchais, in his "Figaro", gave a noteworthy contribution to solve the question of female labour. Jews & Arabs: Israeli Jews insist on committing all national faults of other nations. If they would do the contrary of all that, they would get such sympathy in the whole East that the young men in the neighbourhood would voluntarily join the Jewish army, their feelings strengthened by the pay of a piece of gold every day. A year later the Empire of old king David would be restored & Damascus would again be a Jewish centre. But the Jews would rather die, man for man, than becoming in this way the first of all nations. Deportation of 100,000 Jews from Baghdad. If they would have become the real aristocracy of Mesopotamia, by adopting the principles of a free economy, they would play a most honoured role there. The alternative for all races is now: Become real aristocrats or become chased out or murdered. Jews do not understand that. It seems that the English and Germans are no better.
IV/152 Russian gold is not coined. Russians are prohibited to possess gold. There is no gold market in Russia. There is no market at all in Russia, except the "black market". Ruble & gold. Kant: Average people take their moral etc. notions from the existing legislation. (I think that it is precisely the other way around. - J.Z.)
IV/153 A union of lawyers, economists and men of practical business should frame a petition to Parliament, demanding the immediate repeal of all monetary laws enacted since 1814, and an amnesty for all persons and firms punished for violation of these laws, and, especially, demanding an act which permits a free gold market.
IV/154 Swiss income distribution. Extraordinarily high returns from capital. Foreign capital working there is probably counted as domestic capital. "L'Unique" vs. Tucker's "Liberty". Among B.'s burnt manuscripts there was a sketch on modern French and German novels before 1914. Importance of a manuscript centre to prevent such losses. Frequency of twin births.
IV/155 Sunspots and mortality. Tangier "Free Zone". Honesty of Russian merchants 100 years ago. 8. 6. 1951:
IV/156 American scientists trying to produce a synthetic pepper. In Germany, during the war, there was plenty of synthetic pepper & B.'s impression was that it was good. (Without an Ideas Archive ideas do not easily and fast enough travel around the world! - J.Z., 18.6.03.)
IV/157 Buddha, Kant & Schopenhauer. Remer. Nationalism - everywhere the same. Too much competition?
IV/158 11. 6. 1951: A wage expressed in fiat money cannot be said to be a fixed wage. Vested interest of union functionaries in inflation. Entrepreneurs as a degenerate class. Abolition of taxes laid on incomes destined to provide employment.
IV/159 Racial differences. Dr. Stamm & Cairo's health. Mixed races superior to others. Anyhow, only mixed races are left by now. Inflation.
IV/160 Gold standards. I cannot agree that a country must introduce paper money before it can be on a gold standard. Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms". Freedom from want. Exports & imports, Switzerland. Zander lecture at Geneva, about 15 years ago: Swiss notes act as if they were fixed to the issuing bank by a rubber band. They must return and soon. Other means of payment, gold coins and dollars, do not have the same characteristic for Swiss people. Profits.
IV/161 Why do entrepreneurs not follow the Russian example and name what is called "profit" in the West simply: a) reward for organisation labour and b) reward for labour whose reward was delayed? Two kinds of competition: a) under exclusive currency and b) under freedom to issue. Greene & Tucker. Gold standards.
IV/162 Vaccination. 1. 7. 1951: B. about 20 years ago had a severe attack of influenza. For about weeks he subsisted on bananas, hot lemon squash and two or three times a week a little bread. He felt an aversion to every other food & recovered completely. Because of this self-treatment? Preservation of banking pamphlets. More than 90 % of their authors started from 2 false premises: 1.)Issuing notes is raising a loan from the public and 2.) Notes are a substitute for metallic currency.
IV/163 If economic life really is an exchange of labour then the medium to make the exchange technically possible cannot be a loan. Further: The exchange must be organised so that it is possible even in the absence of precious metal or in the case of its scarcity. That leads to the understanding that, economically, metallic currency is a substitute for notes, not vice versa. Very few, one of them John DeWitt Warner, recognised the true nature of note issuing and were able to emancipate their thinking from the accessory circumstances by which note issuing did, historically, come into existence. Economic liberation movements: The proposal to extend the act of 1826 to Scotland provoked there a real movement. The monetary revolution of five provinces in China, about 1932. A third case was the general strike of the workers of Florence, around 1876, against the forced currency of the notes. In most other cases the people merely demonstrated against high prices without considering their monetary cause. Was there ever a demonstration against legal tender and the central bank's monopoly? Number of innovators among Scots, Jews & Japanese is relatively high.
IV/164 Invention of clearing. Scotch bankers and authors attempting to emancipate the world from metallic currency as an exclusive currency - one of the greatest advances ever made. Payment crises, the quantity of exchange media issued and their distribution and the readiness to spend them. Bacon - Shakespeare. The fate of manuscripts, letters etc. after the death of authors. Schopenhauer & Dorguth. Revaluation & devaluation. Verbal vs. economic differences. Great German inflation taken as instance.
IV/165 Besides the currency all debts are to be revaluated. Mentality of the workers. Revaluation experience after the Napoleonic Wars and that of England after WW I should not be forgotten. Bribery in Czecho-Slovakia. Herder. Honesty & sense for independence. Hitler was rarely able to bribe Czech intellectuals. Strasser. Germans now and forever will be a minority in the family of nations, a small minority. Rights of minorities. Democracy does not mean majority rule.
IV/166 Strasser & Hitler, minority rights & individual secessionism. Pounds spent in Switzerland, Protectionism. Regularity of suicides.
IV/167 B.'s youth. He got beaten from all sides, mainly from teachers in religion! Applying to Jehovah in vain. Redemptionism. Acceptance principle for keeping the own notes at par with gold. Refusal of depreciated notes leads to their disappearance. Trust & distrust.
IV/168 Prices expressed in gold. Right of creditors to get gold. Peel. German civil law, par. 242 on this. Gold clauses were not prohibited. Payment by "Verrechnungsscheck" among merchants. Mint & Bank of England.
IV/169 Further discussion of views of F. W. Smyth's & Meulen's letters on gold, acceptance, redemption, refusal, discounts, cover etc.
IV/170 Advantage of a free gold market: Here small quantities do the same service as large ones. Thus it provides independence from the stock of gold for gold value reckoning. 11. 7. 1951: Slow & careful eating. (Fletcher recommended chewing every bite 32 times! - J.Z.) Leibniz, Newton & Schopenhauer. Everywhere reforms are required. Eliminating more and more pain. God & Nature.
IV/171 Philosophers like Leibniz, Spinoza & Kant forced to accept a language that was then "politically correct". Kant, pleasure, life, duty, nature of men and reforms. Insufficient interest in technical options to accelerate the reform process. Nihilists. Altruism, egoism, self-respect. Democracy, proportional voting. Tucker: The best way is: limiting the power of parliaments by clearly stating the rights of minorities and full liberty of opinion. That would include the right to secede & to practise one's beliefs & convictions in full exterritorial autonomy.
IV/172 Government power to distribute the printing paper is effective like censorship. In Germany the government went further: Even letter writing paper is hard to obtain. B. often used envelops & other scraps to write upon. Freedom of expression. A power to preserve it as a fourth power. Similar to the old Roman institution of the Tribunes. Political maturity or immaturity when many people still believe in the election process & participate in it? Spelling reform. Gold standard & redemptionism. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1947 on this. Par value maintenance does not require gold redemption by the issuer.
IV/173 Gold imports to Lebanon. Sleeplessness & coffee. Egg in London. Entrepreneurs a degenerate class. Miscegenation. Haiti: Mulattos resisted slavery with more energy than did Negroes. Competition with the US.
IV/174 Revaluation not needed to end inflation. "If God created lice, crocodiles and Genghiz Khan, then I am his enemy." Trust, distrust, discounted notes and shop foundation: acceptance at par. Free Will & Determinism. Voltaire, Hume & Priestly, Hobbes, Spinoza, Lukianos, Walter Scott, Schopenhauer & Kant. Metaphysics of Free Will.
IV/175 Free Will & voluntarily chosen starvation as a suicide method. The medium of exchange cannot be a loan. 12. 7. 1951: Medium of exchange: Its true nature vs. the act by which it is put into circulation. Its nature can appear in many forms. Hawtrey, "Currency & Finance", has an excellent chapter on Assignats. H. saw the deciding role of their forced currency. Thiers & Sybel speak of that role as real experts. The Assignats lacked tax foundation.
IV/176 Adam Smith on this in "The Wealth of Nations", chapter "Of Money", last but one paragraph, beginning with the words: "A prince, who should enact …" Assignats and prior notes of the "Caisse d'Ecompte", since 1788, also a forced currency. John Laws. Necker. Official prices & official CPI. 22. 7. 1951: A. J. P. Taylor on Germans, discipline and Nietzsche. Nietzsche as a victim of physicians who prescribed Chloral Hydrate as an opiate and of syphilis. Taylor represents it as if N. became crazy as a result of his own theories.
IV/177 Discipline in German army compared with that in the English. Cruel treatment of soldiers & sailors. It is always absurd to ascribe evil characteristics to people as a member of a nation. 23. 7. 1951: Berlin association of unemployed intending to issue standardised certificates to help them to mutually exchange their labour: SPA. Finally it was another disappointment But from it resulted small groups around B. and long records of their discussions and B.'s long comments on them and the Berlin Program.
IV/178 Life, happiness, duty and reforms. 28. 7. 1951: God, benevolence, creator, anthropomorphism, Schopenhauer, Leibniz, Jewish Jehovah, Spinoza, Kant.
IV/179 Happiness, its shortness during life. Kant. Nietzsche. Power of Parliament, Tucker, program needed, panarchism. Spelling reform. Children & their memory. Phonetic script. "Let the income of people be based on gold and the proportion of 'have-nots' will be at once be diminished." Degeneracy of entrepreneurs. Competition with US.
IV/180 Fluctuations in the value of paper notes & how to avoid or reduce them by valuing in gold and hedging. Revaluation. Prof. Jacob's 1821 classic book on this: "Staatsfinanzwissenschaft". Circulation of option clause notes. Trust in economics is seldom causa prima, but, on the contrary, it is caused. M. himself pointed it out on page 81 of his "Free Banking": "… moreover, the local tradesmen themselves were frequently debtors to the bank and were therefore only too willing to accept the notes." (Later it turned out that M. did not appreciate the significance of his remark. - J.Z.) In a perfect paper currency system distrust produces the same beneficial effects as trust. If distrust arises, the sales increase - - that's all. Free Will & feelings.
IV/181 Plato on free will and character. Schopenhauer & Kant. Causality in general. Determinism. World of things in themselves. Example of a lamp. Indian philosophers. Buddha. We only get appearances. Buddha: Beside the sensations we get there exist very many things from which we get no sensations … The true nature of the medium of exchange - is a purchasing certificate. The existing notes are degenerations. The buyer is always able to issue certificates on which he states: In my usual business I accept this certificate as cash. 29. 7. 1951: Progress by teaching and not by suffering.
IV/182 Christianity, Christendom, Jesus Christ. Love one another as a commandment for his disciples only. Jesus knew how to hate. What he understood by "God" can no longer be found out. Ceremonies. Catholic prayers. Churches. Jesus attribute to truth the greatest value. The people of antiquity generally were liars. E.g.: Plutarch on king Lysander of Sparta. The readiness of subjects to honour their rulers as gods. They felt no shame in producing such lies.
IV/183 Church Christianity. Warrior mentality & honesty. Jesuit mentality, resembling old Jewish clergy mentality. Bastiat called it the "poisoned antiquity". 30. 7. 1951: Public opinion questionnaire on value of life
IV/184 9. 8. 1951: The old idea of financing employment by a coop, refuted by theory and practice more than 100 years ago. Warner system. Smallest self-help instance between 2 persons only and their clearing house. Seume on women and men.
IV/185 15. 8. 1951: Quotation from Seume. Generalisations among men and women.
IV/186 Gardening. Robertson: "Pagan Christs". More than 90 % of the Churches' dogmas are of heathen origins. Martyrs' readiness to die for their faith. Christ not properly represented by the symbol of a lamb. Christ and Kant on resistance. Economics and truth telling: Spender, warrior milieu. Persian doctrine: "Tell the truth and cultivate the art of archery."
IV/187 Gold quotations at Tangier & Alexandria very different. Role of reformers. Cosmic method. Crypto-atheists. Communist World Youth Festival in Berlin. Spelling reform. Revaluation. Shop foundation notes
IV/188 16. 8. 1951: Value of life, happiness, Kant, Thomas Moore (Morus) on health. Maistre. Goethe, Abd ur Rahman, Bismarck. "Pure" happiness. Eckermann. Leopardi.
IV/189 Misfortunes, life & happiness. Buddha, pleasure, Christian mentality. 9. 9. 1951: Dividend limitations, with dividends considered as unearned income. Dividend earners should demand that all income from employment-creating investments should be freed of taxes, then the discussion would in the long run change the present anti-capitalist mentality. Alss, 90 % of dividend earners are not interested in affairs beyond their household.
IV/190 SPA Acceptance by the Bank's debtors vs. the Bank's metallic redemption obligation to assure the capacity of notes to circulate. Number of acceptors required in a population to assure acceptance. (Quality & of acceptors and quantity of their readiness to accept also counts for much. - J.Z., 19.6.03.) Tax foundation. Zander's "Way Out of the Currency Chaos" quotes old Wuerttemberg example: Less than 5 % of the people had to pay taxes at the same day but, nevertheless, the notes were quoted at par. The applies to railway money. Rittershausen called this "shop foundation". Meulen asserts that acceptance foundation would not have worked without metallic redemptionism. B. held that it would have worked so well that the promise of metallic redemption would be found superfluous. Gold redemption by gold coins is immediately impossible for most countries but a free gold market could be opened in an hour. Shop foundation is the principle and issue method that is almost always possible.
IV/191 Meulen declined the honour of having been the discoverer of the principle "value by acceptance at par" and clearly rejected. So the first man who published it with the necessary explanations is Zander. For the SPA only the acceptance at par principle is possible. Small note issuers are always restricted to the neighbourhood where they are known, whether they promise to redeem or not. Barber shop issues in China, prohibited 1931 by Minister of Finance, Wang. (There were similar practices and then prohibitions under the rule of the Mongols. One term for such notes in China was "street money". Tea houses and brothels issued it. - J.Z., 18.6.03.) B. lecture on Kant's philosophy as the basis for a religion for daily life. 12.9.1951: SPA, workshop exchange.
IV/192 Muslims, too, died in great numbers, e.g. in Spain, to defend their faith. But B. spoke of heathens being not so ready to die for their beliefs. One day Agnosticism will have its martyrs as well. There are already remarkable examples. Religious tolerance in ancient Greece was very moderate. Cases of Anaxagoras & Socrates in Athens, its centre of enlightenment. Without its martyrs Christendom might have remained a small sect. Mohammed was most ingenius: Remaining an infidel costs one gold coin per nose and year! Thus religious tolerance became an important source of income for rulers and induced them to support religious tolerance. Opposition by the first Christians may have saved the world from Caesarism. In Taiping Rebellion the soldiers refused the imperial paper money and the emperor saw well enough the difference between a refusal by armed soldiers and that by unarmed merchants. Rare metal wire proved to be a successful "Ersatz". The binding of the note value to the market price of gold means the abolition of redemption in the commonly used meaning. Goethe & Nietzsche stated repeatedly that their best thoughts always came while they were in fresh hair. (Brain work consumes much food & oxygen. In closed rooms the oxygen percentage goes down. - J.Z.)
IV/193 Determinism. Coal shortage. "Governing is so easy! The people are patient and ready to believe everything if a nationalist explanation seems possible." Possev & Solidarism.
IV/194 Wages, highest & lowest and statistical law of distribution. 13. 9. 1951: Clavell Blount: "A National Ideas Department", "Ideen Zentrale of the German federation of unions & Kurt Zube's "Ideas Archive". 17. 9. 1951:
IV/195 Treatment of Arab girls. Kerensky group. Its program contains nothing and is not worth the paper. Military party in Germany. Precedent of Convention of Tauroggen. Yorck & Clausewitz. Malthusianism & Australia. Some bachelors are well off because other people were not practising Malthusians and so produced the children whose labour nourishes these bachelors in their old days. In Berlin each worker must now supply another non-working adult.
IV/196 Australia. "If Australia would have accepted Chinese and Japanese, she could today be peopled by 150 million Asians, all, certainly, champions against Communism." Roepke, a Christian. They rarely see economic and social matters in the right light. Considers communism to be a "progressive" ideology, although it is the very contrary of progressive. Objects to "individualistic" philosophy. Catholic doctrine of "collegia" as the real unit of social life. Free trade in means of payments would, in a few days, produce the equilibrium of the balance of trade. Gold coins need not return if they leave the country but other means of payment must. And while returning they do automatically finance the wanted export.
IV/197 9. X. 1951: Completion of above letter: Reduction of labour hours as a "remedy" for unemployment. Low unemployment in England under Labour Party. Reason for it? Otto Klineberg: "Race & Psychology", concludes: "The scientist knows of no relation between race and psychology." Every traveller would refute Klineberg. (What is involved? Different Folkways, mores, customs, traditions and beliefs or inherent psychology? - J.Z.) Postal deficit to achieve the greatest economic efficiency?
IV/198 "The Vaccination Inquirer". Indian widow burning in which the police protected the murderers, not the widow. Buy British? Pay British and buy where you like! Malthusianism while there are record harvests. Malthusians even welcomed atomic bombs for population control! Prof. Cannan's "optimal population" would considerably improve the world's condition and food supply. Fuel crisis under price controls.
IV/199 Food is cheap - when expressed in terms of gold. Age & productivity. Examples of Kant & Isokrates. 31. X. 1951: Seume, 1792, book on armament. recommended personal armour. (US soldiers during latest Gulf War against Saddam Hussein finally had such protection. How many died in the meantime because it was denied them? - J.Z., 19.6.03.)
IV/200 Elections. Decline of the old glorious UK Liberal Party to 710 934 voters. If it would become really liberal and declare itself against all kinds of monopolies, beginning with that of the Old Lady in Threatneedle street, then this party could again become what it once was. Churchill is without an economic program. Christianity & martyrs. Constantine. Determinism. Malthusianism. Unemployment in England & rearmament. Hitler & Stalin used the same method.
IV/201 Arms are easier to sell than consumer goods - under present conditions. The monetary demand for arms is assured by the government's taxation and spending policy. And "democratic" government can and do sell arms all too readily to dictatorships as well. Post office and Courts to be run at a deficit? Do governments provide justice and do so cheaply? Youth, clear language. Tucker an exception. Happiness. Probability of misfortunes. Quetelet. Note acceptance by debtors of the issuing bank.
IV/202 Railway money. Right of the public to refuse all kinds of paper money, widely recognized by German States, first by an edict of Frederic II of Prussia, about 1766, acknowledge by the Bank Law of 1874, abolished by the law of 1909, which began monetary slavery in Germany. This right will automatically wipe out all paper money whose economic right to exist is not given. Monetary liberty in US before the Civil War led to several thousands of note-issuing banks. Moreover, many shops paid with their paper money. In Pennsylvania, where the relative number of banks was the smallest, there was still one bank for 40,000 people. Such proportion would mean about 200 note issuing institutes for London! Impossibility of gold redemption e.g. for Germany. Amount of gold available for redemption purposes is very small.
IV/203 Gold redemption under M.'s system. 100 % gold redemptionism for gold certificates as "exclusive currency". No monetary exchanges in Germany until 4,000 million gold marks in gold coins have been accumulated for such issues? Or in the meantime only as many exchanges as are permitted by the growing stock in gold coins? Why drive "free" exchanges of millions of goods among millions of people through such a bottleneck? The system is tolerable only when tolerantly practised among volunteers. Why rely on a bank promise to redeem when the bank itself has to go to the gold market to keep its promises? Under the system of the "Four Bills" the note holders themselves may go to the gold market, if they want to. If the notes are discounted there, then the note holders will get their par value to gold at the shops which have to accept the notes at par and have expressed their prices in gold weight units. The gold market offers all the traded gold in the world as "cover" to the suspicious ones. (But it does not guaranty par acceptance of private notes. That is the responsibility of the issuer and his voluntary acceptors, aided by maximum publicity and sound issue and reflux practices. The quality of numerous other goods and services is also controlled and guaranteed without a stock of gold. Imagine all other goods and services having to be redeemable in gold coins by their producers! - J.Z., 19.6.03.)
____________________________________________________________________________________________

Contents Section V
of file: Meulen - Beckerath correspondence, pages 1 - 203,
B. to M.: 1-180, 1. XI. 1951 - 4. 5. 1959,
M. to B. 180-203, 6. 7. 1946 - 1. 4. 1949

Contents of Volume V,
part 1
Letters of U. v. Beckerath
to Henry Meulen

V/1 1. XI. 1951: David Hume, Kant, determinism, metaphysical origin of free will. Bank rate: If there exists free competition in the monetary sphere, then the Bank rate of the Bank of England is not very interesting. Nor are, then, its credit restrictions. Repeal of all charters that grant monopolies, that of the Bank of England no less than that of all others. 2. XI. 1951: Option clause. Adam Smith called it the "Optional clause"
V/2 Short-term & long-term loans, different in banking theory and practice, although seemingly only a matter of degree. Cannan's theory of the optimum population vs. conventional Malthusianism. Refugees & employment for them. Essential point in Kant's philosophy: Contributing to social reform and to the world's peace first of all (being the greatest possible reform), is the most important and urgent of all duties. 8. 12. 1951:
V/3 Redemptionism. Gold standards. No agreement on definitions. Malthusian tactics. "Critical Thought" rather than "Free Thought". Inflation.
V/4 Gold-accounting currency. "Dollar gap" is legislatively caused and would disappear with the repeal of these laws. "Hands off the people's money!" Food is not dear reckoned in gold units.
V/5 English means of payment, used to pay for imports, return to England with greater certainty than a pigeon returns to its coop. By their return they pay for the wanted export. "Pay British and buy where you buy cheapest!"
Convertibility at the free gold market, at the note-issuer's counter or into gold-weight priced goods and services in the shops and into the payment of debts measured by gold weight units? Gresham's Law: Money, fit to be pushed, with advantage to debtors, upon creditors, will drive out other money, fit to be preserved as an investment. Do you think that under your system England could accept, with advantage, 10 million refugees, without any immigration restrictions, refugees able and willing to work? If you think that such an increase in labour power would not be an advantage then your system is not perfect and you should try to find out its remaining defects. Clearing cheques or clearing bills. Economic liberties required for this refugee policy. Likely results.
V/6 Even legislators do not know all the restrictive legislation, far less all the wrongful and harmful effects of it - and yet they go on mass-producing such laws. Ancient Romans had always pretenders or governments-in-exile on hand to use against their enemies. England in the old days had a similar policy. But a social and economic program would be necessary - but neither Churchill nor Eden nor anyone in the whole party has one. Multiple governments- in-exile should be offered. All only for volunteers and confined to full exterritorial autonomy & personal laws. Aldred. Malthusianism. The food question is essentially a monetary question.
V/7 Scottish banking & gold standards. Stephen King-Hall on Soviet expansionism. Old fable, that there is a tremendous surplus of labour among the refugees. There is a crazy monetary system, which prevents the refugees from transforming their want into demand, a transformation that would be easy under monetary freedom. Paper shortage & law repeal. Sir Ernest Benn, concerned with the Census rather than framing a program for individualism. In "The Libertarian", India, I/ 2, July-Sep. 51, article: "Can there Be a Welfare State?" by ?: "As long as the State … has control over money power, our freedom is conditional." The author found, by his own reflection, the reform system which I tried to spread for so many years. (Who was the author? What else did he write on this subject? Monetary freedom advocates of the world unite - & subscribe to full tolerance for all voluntaristic monetary experiments! - J.Z.)
V/8 Mr. Workman, "The Interpreter", 1. 7. 51, article: "A new system of exchange". Sir John Clapham: "Bank of England, a history", 1944. Valuable are the tables showing the Bank's income from the Bank-rate for many years. It was trifling compared with the country's national product. The trouble was not the amount of the Bank rate, it was the Bank's monopoly. 31/ 12/ 1951:
V/9 Kant rejected both, egoism & altruism. There is no duty to make others happy, because even the wisest does not know in what happiness consists of under given circumstances. He also rejected patriarchal government as the most despotic. Instead, he speaks of a constitution of the greatest possible freedom, in which all liberties can peacefully coexist. Then happiness would follow automatically. Really free banking offers the only possible way out of the present situation. A revolution requires a monetary revolution. (The overthrow of communist regimes has still to be followed by a monetary freedom revolution, especially since central banking was the major "reform" of the "Communist Manifesto". - J.Z., 19.6.03.)
V/10 Revolution and monetary freedom. Without monetary freedom revolutions tend to fail even when militarily they win. In a revolution a new monetary system cannot be built upon trust. Monetary freedom first. Next admit Free Trade in every economic sector.
V/11 Zander: Creditors usually don't complain about being paid in gold coins. But creditors should not be entitled to demand gold. Distrust rather than trust is the basis of B.'s system. He started from conditions given in every revolution. Paul Einzig, "Primitive Money", on the kind of value standard that people choose if free to do so: One readily available and marketable. In the Italy of 1945 it was oil. Stipulating payment in gold coins is a kind of gambling or dealing in futures.
V/12 M.s "price of gold" varies because it is not priced in gold but in paper money. When goods are priced in gold then gold would not have a price, for the "price" of an ounce of gold would be an ounce of gold. Do people trust paper money more than gold coins? Let experience in free experiments decide. B. demands a system where everybody is permitted to grant and accept credit even if the last grain of gold has left the country. Balance of trade and gold payments. Free Banking in Germany. By 1870 there were more note-issuing banks in Germany than in Scotland. Full freedom of issue existed in neither or any other country. Commerce does not need gold as a means of payment. When international clearing certificates are used gold would also not be needed in external trade as a means of payment.
V/13 Trust. Price of gold. It would be best if the Bank of England would be just one bank among other bank and the very best if its charter would be repealed. David Hume on money. If the quantity of money changes then prices do not follow very quickly. But when they do, they always disadvantage somebody. Hume lacked knowledge of clearing, of free banking and of clearing bills. Determinism. Japanese cheap bicycles. Gold Standard, article in Encyclopaedia Britannica recommended.
V/14 Payments for imports. Reichsbank policy. Before cables connected Europe and America negotiations on clearing settlements were time consuming. So often gold shipments were made from both sides, meeting in the middle of the ocean and indicating that the best payment method had not been used. 500 years before the merchant guilds of Italian towns used well organised clearing in their oriental trade. Gold shipments were rare. The Bank of England redeemed in gold coins that were too light or at their limit in weight, where a gold coin ceases to be legal tender. The whole redemption system was dishonest and rested on ignorance and prejudice.
V/15 At the free bullion market precious metal was so easily obtained in Germany that foreigners preferred to secure it in Germany. Quote from speech of von Wangenheim, in 1908 on this. Many grievances concerning gold were attributed to the economic or monetary properties of gold while bad payment methods and habits, bad laws and the ignorance of "experts" etc. were the real cause. "Raising capital by circulation" is now out of the question. For where is the limit for such a system? M.'s book, magazine & letters do not supply an answer. M.'s fundamental principle: Slacken the velocity of paper currency, so that for years it would not return to the issuer and do this by strengthening trust in the banker. Neither gold stocks nor trusted bankers exist in the East. But ticket money could be easily and fast issued. How quickly was indicated by Warner in his "The Currency Famine of 1893". Ticket money was issued in Russia in 1834. The issuers were wrongly accused of being coiners or forgers. But they had merely issued emergency money to pay wages with when notes from Moscow were delayed. (Even after the fall of the Soviet regime there were delays for months in paying wages and salaries! - J.Z., 19.6.03.) Obviously, ticket money and shop currencies return fast to their issuers.
V/16 The value standard needed in the East must not depend upon the opinion of experts. Long term credits. Any chosen one must be permitted. Repayment by instalments would be required. Or payment machines supplied by dated clearing certificates. In every case in the B.-system the store of goods or services ready for sale at the shops of the debtors of the bank of issue are the redemption fund, a sufficient and necessary one. This redemption fund must also be price in the same value unit as the ticket money or the clearing certificates or industrial bonds issued. This conformity creates a great independence, not an absolute one, from the conditions of the general market of the good which serves as value unit. 3. I. 1952:
V/17 Payment for imports.
V/18 4. I. 1952: Determinism, Post Office. Scotch notes & the clearing house.
V/19 5. I, 1952 Bullion market, cross rating, value preserving clauses. Convertibility into tax receipts, general debt receipts, commodities or services. Economists. The aim of a revolution is to create as much liberty as possible and not new restrictions and suppressions.
V/20 Acceptance obligation for debtors of an issuing centre. "Upon no other class of men can such an obligation be imposed without tyranny." (Well, the issuer themselves are obliged to accept their own notes from anyone at par. - J.Z., 20.6.03.) Tax payers get no loan from the government. Insofar they are not debtors. Tax payments with clearing bills. Paper money for a revolution must be valued in a commodity like gold, silver, grains etc., so that it can get a discount at the market, as its best safety valve and refusing the paper money is the best means to get the safety valve to work. Trust & distrust.
V/21 "Invariable unit" & gold redemption. Both unsuitable for financing a revolution. When all commodities of the country, or a great part of them, are priced in gold units, then the stock of commodities ready for sale works as an immense gold redemption fund, provided the commodity owners must accept the notes at par. According to Prof. Hirsch, the value of goods ready for sale in Germany was about 30,000 millions in 1930. To this must be added the value of services ready for sale & of due debts.
V/22 Tucker's money system unsuitable for revolutions. Gold hoarding, accumulated gold & current production. Interest, wages and production. 17. II. 1952:
V/23 Rittershausen. Germany's involvement in producing war materials.
V/24 Rittershausen. Using commodities as investments. Wrongfulness of credit restrictions. Central banking. 18. II. 1952: Gresham's Law. Confucius.
V/25 Foreign trading only with foreign exchange? Export spleen. Clearing bills.
V/26 Referendum. "Englishmen - use the whole world as your market, but pay British! Profits, then & now. 1. 5. 1952: Insomnia connected to chloride of lime in the drinking water?
V/27 Employing every refugee, rebuilding long-term credit, reconstruction of the East. Can Europeans use the method of Mao to extinguish a war. (By induced mass desertion.) 2. V. 1952: Malthusianism and the experience of a maximum for everything. Dr. George Biedenkapp, Denkdummheiten …: 1896. Chamisso noted that Polynesians use the word taboo as it is used in Hebrew.
V/28 "Recent" discovery that Greenland is a group of island. Chamisso pointed this out in the report on his voyages. Rodbertus, Marx & Chitti. 2. 5. 1952: Health, tea, coffee. gardening. "… economics and social reform are my real life."
V/29 Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Sozialreformer, Rittershausen's visits. Two currencies in Berlin, jobs for refugees. 8. 6. 1952:
V/30 Constitution of Athens, a described by Hans Delbrueck & Aristotle. Party system & "election" by lot. Lay judges. In Basle & old Germany members of the faculty of law are eo ipso judges in the court of appeal.
V/31 Working harder? Under trade union rules? The principles of the trade unions are the same as those of the universities: They take it for granted that there can be no other monetary principle then the present of monopolised paper money being not only legal tender but a forced currency, which are notions never used in modern economics. Repealing all acts restraining liberty in the supply of means of payment would remove all motives with which unions now try to restrict the quantity of British output. Modern language of "economics". When governments devaluate all "captains of industry" applaud because for the moment export is increased. Inflation vs. dearth.
V/32 To determine a priori the needed volume of paper money is impossible. But when people have the right to refuse suspect means of payment then monetary liberty creates exactly the required amount. Without forced currency no inflation is possible. Without forced currency means of payment may get a lower value, but prices in the general market remain unchanged. But if the notes are a forced currency, then prices rise by inflation. Is deflation the opposite of inflation? The opposite of inflation is liberty of note issue, for better notes than the State provides. The opposite of deflation is by no means inflation. Deflation is impossible where the people possess what the Americans 100 years ago called "the right of issue" and where the bankers are able to use that right with the necessary prudence. So the opposite of deflation, too, is liberty of note issue. The liberty of issue is in both cases differently used, one time to remove a bad currency, and one time to remove a lack of currency. These are the possibilities of liberty. Lack of income may be a motive for a government to inflate. It is not a cause for inflation. Inflation involves a heavy guilt for those who inflate. Lansburg proposed a "gallows currency". Monetary revolution. Tucker: "… a determined body of people … by issuing their own money in defiance of legal prohibition … government will go by the board." Dividends in US only 5.3 % of total wages. In Germany it is now nearly the same.
V/33 Cooperative socialism. Production of war materials. 9. 6. 1952: Gobineau: "La renaissance" recommended. Machiavelli: a perfect gentleman and friend of the Italian people, in his heart an anarchist. True meaning of his "The Prince": See, reader, that is the unavoidable behaviour of a prince if he wants to serve his country. No ruler at all would be the ideal. This ideal being impossible, democracy is the least evil. Alas, neither Gobineau nor Machiavelli explored the exterritorial autonomy option for all. 14. 6. 1952:
V/34 Excess thinking? Spencer. Exercise, walking & thinking. Kant. West-mark & East-mark. A problem for statists. Liberty in trade would solve the problem very easily. Insofar as the people of Berlin simply took the liberty here needed, they did solve the problem in the most natural and simple way. International auxiliary language. Esperanto and Zamenhof. Maximum size of all corporal things. Goethe, Kant. God. Spinoza.
V/35 Kant & astronomy. Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia and his giant soldiers. Araucans in South Chile. Malthusianism.
V/36 Multatuli: "Max Havelaar". Indonesia. Mentality that endures tyranny without resistance. Possible effect of marriage at a very young age. 15. 6. 1952: Comparing interest in the Hansard Society with that in Free Banking. Free banking is a right and a necessity. King-Hall. UNO. Second Hanseatic League. Berlin. Swiss model.
V/37 Letter of Count de Tancarville on Germany. Malthusianism vs. the facts. Lasker & Gerhard on 1848 German revolution & soldiers shooting on peaceful citizens: "tail-wagging obedience machines" … "do not deserve the name human beings …" Dividends: 1/10th of wages.
V/38 Relationship of wages & profits 50 years ago. 16. 6. 52: Free Trade under monetary freedom.
V/39 Monarchism & John Law. Every government is good which permits a legal condition as described by Herbert Spencer in chapter 19 of "Social Statics": The right to ignore the State or to secede from it. Hitlerism, Casesarism, Stalinism. German language. 17. 6. 1952:
V/40 Free Banking practised without being permitted is a revolution. Gold coins in circulation. Zander. Religious aversion against Gold. Silvio Gesell. (Gsell). I do no longer demand a cours forcé for gold coins. Credit restrictions. Free Trade & clearing bills.
V/41 Free gold market: a free bullion market. Trust? What kind of trust? Right to refuse all kinds of paper money. Option clause notes. Tradesmen's tokens. Everyone thinks his system to be the best. Practice will decide, once it is permitted.
V/42 Interest and profit rates. Abolition of foreign exchange controls. 19. 6. 1952: Unionists in Yorkshire striking against foreign workers & thus declared the principle of international solidarity between workers as non-existing for them.
V/43. By their actions they declared: Workers have the right to exercise the same privilege of exclusive disposition over land and other means of production which employers exercise. The presupposition for using this privilege is only the power to use it. Neither the employer nor the workers have a right to exclude others from the right to use a country. Henry George. (He denied it e.g. for Chinese! - J.Z., 21.6.03.) Theodor Hertzka. 22. 6. 1952:
A money system for normal times? What are normal times? Monetary despotism prevails everywhere but is not normal.
V/44 To think that precious metal, as a measure of value, was the true cause of the many evils of the old system, was one of the most disastrous errors. Complete liberty for economic and monetary experiments will come to be considered as normal but such a complete liberty has hardly ever existed and if it existed, then it was not used. I demand the right to take standardised medals of gold as 1. measure of value and 2. as a means of payment freely accepted and not to be extorted by a law suit. Not as the main means of payment but as one which exists and permits daily the control of the value of all kinds of other means of payment. You demand a special system of redemption, which supposes that prices are fixed in paper units, which are not connected to any commodity. You suppose that the public will adopt such a system under freedom. I demand for all the liberty to try.
V/45 No economist would consider your system as normal, may its virtues be ever so high. It is quite new. Meulen's system would lead to different values for the notes of different Meulen bankers. Trust & redemptionism. "Normality" before fire was discovered and cannibalism discontinued. 30. 6. 1952: Choosing politicians by lot. Aristotle & the Constitution of Athens. Jefferson on sunset laws. Inflation & rising prices.
V/46 Over-issues, refusals & discounts will not affect the price marked in sound value standards. Thus no inflation will take place. Abstract units of value do not lead to instant recognition of over-issues. Let the market decide, on currencies, too. Acceptance obligation for the debtors of the bank of issue. The "goods" which a government sells are tax receipts.
V/47 Tax foundation money. Deposits and capital. Inflation & its opposite. Kant on popularisation. Maximum size in plants etc. Darwinian selection.
V/48 Nature as a cruel and prodigal being and not our friend. It should be replaced by something better, as Schopenhauer contended and others, like Leopardi & Buddha. "The Individualist" at the ANL in Canberra. German media and Free Banking. Internal affairs. The treatment of nationals in Germany is a matter for every man in the whole world. Hitler. "For me no national matters exist. I concede to no prince, parliament, conqueror or politician or any other the right to reserve a territory and to declare: this territory is mine and the atrocities I commit here or assist here or pardon and protect here, are my affair! Every man would have the right to kill such a monopolist if he can and should be assisted by all other men not unworthy of this name." (Panarchism & tyrannicide.) Payments to USA.
V/49 A great building in a forest near Berlin destroyed merely because Hitler wanted to use it for a military academy. It would have made an ideal hospital. 4. 8. 1952: Chitti, Marx & Rodbertus, vs. Andrews & Warren. Mr. Bhavan as publisher of freedom writings.
V/50 St. P. Andrews & monetary freedom. Right to issue: Most people think of it only in connection with legal tender currency & thus reject this right. Right to refuse paper monies - for all but issuers and his debtors. Trust. Ticket money. Long-term credit would be provided by means very different from simple note-issuing. Interest of for pre-done labour: Labour done in excess of the worker's immediate wants is also entitled to its full reward. (A share in what it helps to produce.) Forms of capital and of interest. Right of creditors to extort gold.
V/51 St. P. Andrews continued. Zander. Right to demand an exclusive currency, even if it is only "labour notes". Right to demand cash to be replaced by right to demand clearing. Ticket money and goods and service vouchers etc. do constitute a form of clearing. Labour hour standard. As soon as one speaks of average labour of average people, one introduces the market element, an element which easily solves the problems not to be solved by the most impartial judge, who tries to appreciate the just price of a special labour of a single person. "I do not acknowledge the cost principle." The value principle is a good regulator wherever no monopolies exist. Too high monopoly prices violate other people's rights. The Indian Satyagraha is, for social and political purposes, much superior to the guillotine method. Gandhi. Value in the sense of Andrews and market value profoundly investigated by Marshall. What Andrews wants to achieve is achieved by a market, whose visitors are not monopolists. Andrews, Marxism & the market. Subjective value theory.
V/52 Reparations of 1919-1923 were really paid. Later they were turned into loans to Germany. Keynes. Defence costs. Dismantlings or Demontagen, in East and West Germany.
V/53 Germany in WW III, as main battleground, will be largely destroyed. 8. 8. 1952: Ido. King-Hall underestimates the importance of economic liberty. Did Germans chose Hitler with their eyes open? The fundamental flaw was the parliamentary system, with its "elections", its parties, etc. This was set up on the English model. That's no reproach to Englishmen and none to Germans. But this system must be wholly removed. (For territories! For exterritorial volunteer communities it could remain, then being also rendered sufficiently harmless. - J.Z., 21.6.03.) Athenian lot system. Gold coin hoarding in France. Gold conversion at the bullion market does not restrict economic liberty. An obligation of the issuer to convert his notes restricts liberty, even if the obligation is undertaken voluntarily. Trade should be quite independent of the quantity of precious metal in a country. Free gold market, different interpretations, including misunderstandings. To avoid misunderstandings B. intends to use "Free Bullion Market" instead.
V/54 The obligation of an issuer to redeem his notes at par and on demand in rare metal is one of the worst inventions ever made. (All monetary commodity exchanges are thus forced to go through the bottleneck of one or two rare metals, whose physical presence is required, instead of using merely their value as value standards. - J.Z., 21.6.03.) Option clause notes. There should be only one restriction. (Here Andrews & Warren are much superior to the Scotch): The quantity of goods and services ready for sale in the country, and not the quantity of precious metal that restricts note issue and, consequently, trade. Tradesmen's tokens were redeemable only in goods of the issuer. If that was the case, then these notes were not based on trust but on the quantity of saleable goods, visible to everybody, on the shelves of the issuer. The trust was eliminated so as it is eliminated in the case of an opera ticket. Scottish tradesmen's tokens. Low & high interest. I am a metaphysician. The beliefs, that things like pressure, elasticity, electricity, acid, alkali and such "entities" are things in themselves, is a metaphysic, too, and by far not the best.
V/55 Commercial discounts & fluctuations on the bullion market. 9. 8. 1952: History of how Hitler came to power: By appointment, after the 1932 elections. The March 1933 election was not free but already under Hitler's control.
V/56 Hindenburg the old traitor. (Also an almost illiterate one. He bragged once that after school he had not read more than 3 books! - J.Z., 21.6.03.) Tacitus on Corbulo, Nero's general. The general must revolt and try to kill the tyrant. That is his duty! Hindenburg a tyrant of the Galba type. Galba governed by his favourites. His government was so bad, that the people's opinion was: Nero governed better. Modern exclusion of machines: Not destroyed but simply not used!
V/57 The old fallacy on machines & employment, shared by Montesquieu & Marx. Machines increase the degree of employment. 10. 8. 1952: The government's "care" for the currency is the main cause of unemployment. Communism, Soviets, Russia: A Mafia or Camorra: Jobs and power for the top boys. Full employment for all refugees, possible through Free Banking - but it seems impossible to sufficiently publish this method.
V/58 Social Credit in Canada. Legalism among Nazis? Article 4 of the 1919 Weimar Constitution: "The generally recognised rules of international law are binding parts of the German laws." Disobedience to wrongful orders was even part of the Prussian military law, directed, naturally and primarily against high treason by officers. West German army rules a positive development - although, naturally, they do not yet go far enough, either, in upholding individual human rights. German disobedience under Napoleon I. Nuremberg Court should not have excluded impartial German judges. However, if its judges were impartial then their nationality should not have mattered.
M.: "How Germany treats her nationals is a matter for Germans to decide." B.: The "nationals" were not treated by Germany; they were treated by rascals, followers of Hitler. Germany did not know all of their crimes before 1945 and many still believe that they did not happen. But I know they happened and even more terrible ones than the journals reported.

1. Actions like those of commanders of the concentration camps concern every man in the whole world. No authority has the right to say: In this territory I can do whatever I like to do! I declare that other peoples' notions of justice are not valid in the territory which I declare to be mine! ("Internal affairs" & non-intervention.) Such a haughty standpoint is morally worth less than the croaking of a frog. Every Eskimo has the right to kill the rascal and those who help him. "Russia" & "Russians". 11. 8. 1952: Trifling dividends at Dailmer-Benz AG, 1951. Very high the "share" of government. If the workers were better led, then they would offer to buy the whole society and make a cooperative of it. But the almighty unions want something against which they can fight or seem to fight, so that the workers are not tempted to discuss the necessity of the unions. Thus they pretend to fight against shareholders.
   
2. Businesslike take-overs of enterprises by their workers. Communist Manifesto on Central Banking & Legal Tender. Today all governments of the world realised the Communist monetary program. (In "freed" Russia and its "freed" satellites it is still realised! - J.Z., 21.6.03.) The Reichsbank & the Bank deutscher Laender are concessions to the Communist idea. 12. 8. 1952: German treatment of nationals? Are nations individuals? Are governments individuals? Berlin: Refugees voting with their feet.
   
3. Religion. Fichte really opened the door to all sorts of interference by individuals into affairs today considered to be affairs of nations. But a nation cannot have affairs. (Free love for individuals - in their political affairs! - J.Z., 21.6.03.) Progress & decentralisation, including individual secessionism or Spencer's "ignoring the State". Fichte, 1793: "Each has the perfect right to secede from the State as soon as he wants to." 13. 8. 1952: Payments to USA. Zander. Inflation & rising prices. M.- notes compared with B.-notes.
   
4. I do not say that gold is a very good measure of value. It is the relatively best or least monetary evil. I demand liberty in choosing the measure of value. I never demanded that people should be entitled to exchange notes for gold at a fixed price. Balance of trade, hoarding etc. cannot influence the value relation of gold to my notes, as long as shops accept gold and their paper as equals. Acceptance at a fixed relation and exchange at a fixed relation is a great, fundamental, theoretical and practical difference. 14. 8. 1952: Dismantling. Cases where it was not done: After the Civil War in the US, after the Swiss war of 1847 & after the German government occupied Alsace-Lorraine in 1971. If the Nazis had won, they would not have proceeded more reasonably. "I am an old Internationalist - - and a member of the République Supranationale. The last war was for me a civil war." Reason in the 20th century does no longer possess the same power that it had in the 19th century.
   
5. Human factor & dismantlings. Duke of Wellington would have declared: The German arms industry now works for us! German workers would not have cared much for whom they worked. Andrews & Warren. Andrews as the pioneer of the "shop foundation idea", the only possible one in a revolution, to provided at once wage payments without the danger of inflation. (Or to provide mass employment for masses of unemployed and refugees and deserters! - J.Z., 21.6.03.) Robert Owen and his "exchange bank". Spent labour & value. Independence of producers from lenders, under freedom to create the instrument of lending. Labour notes: Andrews, buyers and debtors.
   
6. "My proposition: The debtor sells his own notes to a banker or shopkeeper or an association of shopkeepers and gets their notes in a sound discounting business. 15. 8. 1952: B. on M.'s article "Wages & Profit", text not on hand. B.'s 20 notes on it.
   
7. 25. 8. 1952: Association of Unemployed. B's talk on reconstruction of Berlin & employment, via value-preserved investments, gold coin circulation, free gold market etc. Precedent the German law of August 1923, Switzerland, Tangier etc. Only a few listened with interest.
   
8. The senator for labour tried to bribe the leaders with jobs for them. Representatives by lot as in old Athens. Socrates, aristocracy & party system. Gold coins always quoted over the market price for gold bars.
   
9. M.: The quantity of gold use in an exchange system is a measure of mutual trust in that system. B.: It depends, essentially, on the right of creditors to demand gold coins & this factor dominates much more than the trust factor. Pricing in gold weight units. Forerunner of this system in Berlin was "Meinl", a shop or chain of shops. The right of people to refuse paper notes would favour B.'s system. Tradesmen's tokens. Hitler appointed by Hindenburg although the majority of voters was against Hitler.
   
10. Machines for clearing the ruins of Berlin and employment. Spencer's "Social Statics". Tucker. Dismantling.
    
11. 8. 1952: Metaphysics, Kant, Schopenhauer & Hume. Experience & certainties.
    
12. Gold coins: For short intervals paper money may possess a more stable purchasing power than gold coins, but for long intervals the contrary is the case. Wages & profits. Competition in the insurance business. Agents and middlemen between producers & consumers. Here great possibilities exist to reduce the general price level, some say even by about 50 %. Some public insurance, e.g. in Prussia fire insurance, much cheaper than private insurance.
    
13. Bata and his shoe factories with their nearly independent work-coops or autonomous work groups. Zola, in "Germinal" described the system in full use at the French mines in the Pas de Calais. ("Gang work" - J.Z.) Banknotes directly issued for industrial loans? Banknotes & similar notes must at every hour be convertible into goods of daily use or such services. That is not possible for M.-notes issued for long-term loans.
    
14. When prices of a produce ready for sale are split into their elements: wages, earnings of the entrepreneur, commissions to sales agents, interest etc., then interest is usually quite a trifling percentage. Proof: The published records of joint stock companies. Clearing bills for the purchase of machines, redeemed gradually by being accepted in payments. The quantity of goods & services ready for sale is the real source of credit. It is also saved capital. Statistical rule that the quantity of circulating money does not differ much from a month's production. This was already observed by Petty. Free bullion market.
    
15. 2. 9. 1952: Meinl Gold-Mark notes in Berlin.
    
16. Meinl notes not disturbed by the inflation of the other means of payment. The legal tender system itself becomes impossible once it is abused as it was in Germany in 1923 or in the time of Assignats, as described by Hawtry in his "Currency & Credit". The shop foundation system functions even when the issuer is otherwise considered as a bad debtor, i.e., not "trusted" in M.'s sense. Bullion market as a barometer for widely used exchange media. (The others are not rated there. - J.Z., 21.6.03.) Soviets are not revolutionaries but the ruling class. Fichte's, Herbert Spencer's and de Puydt's secession from the State apparently not known to Tucker, but de Puydt's "Panarchy" was known to Max Nettlau & Gustav Landauer.
    
17. A law permitting the renunciation of State citizenship, including State laws against "aliens" requires no change in morality. (But it will bring one about! - J.Z., 21.6.03.) It is far superior to that of Tucker, although at last, through the dissolution of territorial States into a system of voluntary communities or voluntary governments, polyarchies, panarchies etc., the same status of the general society would be achieved. The role of interest. Manufacturers and banks. Gold Coast politics. Democracy in Africa etc.
    
18. The possible beginning of a democracy among "savages" was pointed out by Ellis, Polynesian Researches, II, page 457. This was transformed into a poem by Chamisso: "A Day of Court in Huahine". Legal tender property of the sovereign. Legal tender decision of the Reichsgericht in 1923. The people executed the monetary revolution some weeks before that highest court of Germany legalised it. Rittershausen. "Yes, I would abolish completely: 1.) the right of every creditor (worker, landlord, etc.) to demand gold coins from a creditor, 2. the right note holders to demand gold coins from an issuer. I do not consider the note holder as the creditor of the note issuer. 9. 9. 1952: Gold hoarding in France. M. seems to presume that paper money, prescribed as a measure of value and as legal tender, is the only thing not disturbed by political interventions and that it has remained as stable as the pound avoir dupois, the second and the yard.
    
19. What is disturbed when political causes occur, such as the Korea panic in the year 1951? Is it the price of gold bullion? No - the paper money has got a kick! Why the increased demand for gold in panics? In such panics they remember that gold bullion, especially in form of coins, will remain more stable in relation to all other goods, except paper money, than any other particular good. Meinl notes.
    
20. Meinl notes. My system has, certainly, nothing to do with the British standard, at any moment of British history. During the US Civil War and many years afterwards US merchants used B.'s system. They priced their goods in gold dollars. It is a private system, not a "gold standard" system in the usual meaning of the word. "Gold bullion market payment system" would, perhaps, be a good name. Typical Meulen objections.
    
21. B. vs. M. system. "… I knew the principles of the system before I had heard or read of the "Clearing House Certificates". "I would not use the bullion market as an infallible sign of excessive note issues." (Local currencies may not even be rated there. For them local markets, their discounts and refusals are more decisive. - J.Z., 21.6.03.)
    
22. Stronger demand for gold: "I ask you once more: What demand can occur from the side of foreign merchants, or of the country's merchants, if creditors do no longer possess the right to claim gold coins?" 29. 9. 52: Meulen accepted the notion of modern economists of the "price of gold", although they take it only in one meaning and that is: Price of gold expressed in current money, an exclusive and forced currency. Gold coins as the basis of a gold standard do not possess a price expressed in gold.
    
23. An assumed doubling of the value of gold. Meinl notes.
    
24. Meinl notes and M.'s objections.
    
25. Meinl notes and M's "If! If!" Rationalism and Reality. Reality beyond sensations. Knowledge without experience. Kant. Christians. God as a mammal. Buddhism, Brahmans.
    
26. Since Christians are also convinced that their God does not consist of flesh and blood one can only conclude that he or she or it consists of a very light and transparent gas: A gaseous mammal. Kant, in cautious and even biblical words, contended that the most dignified representation of God was that of a redeeming principle, a principle of progress and, consequently, of social reform. He invites the reader to continue and to say: Ergo, God is the principle of revolution! 6. X. 1952: Standardised means of payment are the most indispensable of all goods, much more indispensable than bread. "… you are at present the only man in England, who defends the right of your fellow citizens to issue such means of payment, while all others take it as self-evident, that only the government or government-authorised banks should be permitted to issue them. … a strange thing, that Old England, the mother of liberty, till now overlooked such a fundamental right of men and citizens." 7. X. 1952: Churchill, Peel. "I consider the legal claim of creditors to gold coins as the most evil detail of the old gold standard."
    
27. What M. means by the words "the price of gold doubles". He refers to the average price of all other commodities. He speaks of the "fixed value" of a gold coin and that B.'s intention would be to let gold coins circulate at a fixed value. "But such an aim would surpass the power of an almighty being. What I demand is only: Not to prohibit the free circulation of gold coins. Also: Not to prohibit the pricing of commodities in gold coins." Gold coin circulation & pricing in gold coin values. Cross rates. Gold pricing is possible even if not a single gold coin circulates in a country.
    
28. Frankfurt/M gold market. Prices expressed in gold are more stable than many people think, though they are far from absolute stability. Meinl notes. When a government declares: We purchase gold at a fixed price, the latter expressed in paper units, that is a certain sign that the subjects are on a paper standard. M.'s assumption that the price of gold will fall sharply.
    
29. Physical properties are very probably the same on the other side of the moon but mathematical truths are not only probably the same but the are the same with absolute certainty. How certain are the impressions given to us by our eyes? Program of the Berlin Society of 1952 to fight the causes of unemployment. Index numbers and price averages. 16. X. 1952: Mathematical truths.
    
30. Publication of the "Berlin Program". Here B. missed a chance by insisting upon a very low price. (My suggestion of a prize competition among unemployed, financed by themselves, run by themselves, decided by themselves, to solve themselves the "problem" of full employment. One million unemployed, properly organised and motivated, could certainly do this within one to a few years. - J.Z.)
    
31. "Sir Robert Peel certainly would decline the assertion that my system resembles, in the least, the system of the Peel's Act." B. - shops stand towards buyer who appears with gold bullion and buyers who appear with B.-notes. B.'s definitions of "price of gold", "purchasing power of gold" & "free price of gold".
    
32. Payment by B.-shop to the wholesaler for commodities, to landlords and employees. B.'s best business will be to lend his notes to employers, who have difficulties in getting short-term bank credit for the payment of wages. Price increases in extraordinary situations. In Greece the Sovereign is the normal measure of value for most commodities, although the buyers seldom have or even see a gold coin. This causes no difficulties.
    
33. 11. 11. 1952: Lack of a program. Most great reforms began with meetings or petitions. (But are they effective and cheap enough means? Are there better ones, neglected so far? - J.Z.) Value of Sovereigns in Greece. (One factor that helped to stop the paper money inflation in Greece, which B. reported elsewhere, was that public servants, paid in paper money, with inflated paper, not indexed and paper salaries increased only at rare intervals, largely gave up their jobs and worked e.g. in harbour jobs instead, whose wages were continuously increased in accordance with the inflation rates. No despotic system can go on working when its bureaucrats, soldiers and taxpayers and inflation victims escape it or begin to help themselves in honest ways. - J.Z., 21. 6. 03.) Pricing in gold coins is not ideal; but it is the least evil.
    
34. Disappearing gold coins. Hawtrey. Refusals for all paper money. Governments may force merchants to accept paper money. It did so in Munich in October and November 1923. As a result the wholesalers stopped all supplies to Munich. When prices race ahead of the printing press then prices, converted into gold, are extremely high.
    
35. Experience in stable value reckoning during the German Great Inflation. Kurt Zube, copying B.'s letter on Desertion Plan and pacifism. "Military Jiu Jitsu or: How Chinese Soldiers Determined the Limits of Military Obedience". Kant's philosophy & Kleist. Schopenhauer Society.
    
36. Space and time are functions of our brains, according to Kant and Schopenhauer. Communist philosophy, the well-known popular materialism. 4. 12. 1952: State, revolutions, power, statism, modern liberals. The monetary sphere should be restored to the individual. South Africa: The whole native question is really an attempt to provide work for the Whites. The Negroe always gets work because he works cheaper than the White.
    
37. The only ones, who can present a program to provide work to the Whites, without the "Apartheid-Despotism", are we, the money reformers, who say: The quantity of work and employment should no longer depend upon the quantity of money provided by the ignorance of modern money-"planners". Full employment should thus become the normal condition of society. 5. 12. 52: "… my monetary aim: finance the social revolution, without which life will lose all worth and mankind will be reduced to a state much worse than the state of their predecessors, when they lived - a 100 000 years or so ago - on trees. Probably nobody described the state to be feared better than Orwell did in his '1984'…." Tucker.
    
38. Tucker's plan must be completed in important details, e.g. by replacing the "member-foundation" by the "debtor-foundation". Sometimes I am inclined to despair. Kant consoles me. Do your duty and do not forget that nature also acts in you. If you want to get an impartial judgement concerning my plan: Try yourself to draw up such a plan or imagine that some revolutionaries from suppressed countries came to you for advice. Or imagine yourself in the situation of Steuart, whom the Scotch, in 1745, made their minister of finance. His task was to provide the means of payment for the revolution. He did his best, still a very young man, but later realised that it was not good enough. The result of his reflections were the 5 books of his "Enquiry", which give the impression that he would not have failed a second time.
    
39. "Price of gold" once again. Kantian philosophy. Certainty. Gauss & Dase.
    
40. Kant, writing under censorship about revolution, God and immortal "souls". Mathematical truths.
    
41. Aristotle, Plato, Kant. 5. I. 1953: Edward VII. 1870/71 Bombardment of Paris. Moltke & Crown Prince
    
42. opposed but King William & Bismarck were in favour of it. (What is to be done with such decision-makers and, more importantly, with such decision-making powers? - J.Z., 21.6.03.)
    
43. Buckle on religious tolerance, climate and landscape, relatively easy vs. relatively hard lives. Buddha considered monotheism as a gross heresy. Seven Brahman sects considered complete annihilation as the end (aim? - J.Z.) of salvation. Buddha, like Kant, eliminated the notion of heaven from true religion. J. M. Robertson, "History of Freethought". Revolutionaries that use forced currency do not deserve the name "revolutionaries". The cours forcé is the existing thin and the free market quotation is the revolutionary change. "The revolution that I expect and foster (that means: I hope to be able, one day, to do so) is a monetary revolution, …" Banking by prominent, honourable people? Is there one such person who did not utter absurd ideas on note issuing?
    
44. Two men, both trained and logical thinkers, sincerely seeking truth, for years and years cannot agree and even do not understand one another, the cause may be: They use the words in different meanings. They start from different suppositions, without exactly stating from which suppositions they start. Both happened to us. E.g., the "price of gold" may mean … ABC. Rittershausen's "Internationale Handels- und Devisenpolitik". R. distinguishes between Legal Tender for notes and Legal Tender for foreign exchange, the latter via foreign exchange controls.
    
45. 9. II. 1953: Electric blankets, much more useful than atomic bombs. Rittershausen's new book. Modern economics language: "it disgusts me". Philosophy and monetary standard. Kant.
    
46. Simplicity of valuing with gold coins. Tolerance for "payment communities", a term suggested by Knapp. Fiat money that a debtor may force upon his creditor should be distinguished from fiat money that a creditor may demand from this debtor.
    
47. The great error of the reformers was, that they thought, that measuring values by gold coins or paying, voluntarily, debts in gold coins, would be essentially the same as claiming gold coins from debtors. Creditors hould not be entitled to claim gold coins. (It is often as difficult to impossible to pay in this way as it would be to pay e.g. in diamonds or in some rare earth mineral or the other. - J.Z., 21.6.03.) Shop foundation money. When notes are based on goods ready for sale, the note is based on distrust rather than on trust.
    
48. Monetary disobedience. Gold circulation & accounting on the black market. You defend a "free gold price". I demand the abolition of the gold price, if it must be: By a monetary revolution. Tucker. Berlin & refugees.
    
49. Inflation, deflation & credit restrictions. A government has not right to restrict credit, nor a right to expand credit. The govt. has only the duty to abolish the cours forcé. The right of the people to refuse a currency and to replace it by means of payment of private origin. It would expand the amount of currency exactly to the limit whose transgression would depreciate the currency. The explanation of that simple but forgotten truth is one of the aims of Rittershausen's book. Military expenses under free labour. Want to be permitted to appear as demand. The true age of the machine will begin after the establishment of the new monetary order. Many more granted patents will come to be used. Receiving gold coins in normal business, i.e., as means of payment, is very different from buying the gold coins. "Price of gold", once again. Monetary revolution.
    
50. Many things that M. thought impossible did occur daily in Germany in practice, during the Great Inflation. (Alas, this monetary revolution did not go far and fast enough! - J.Z., 21.6.03.) Cross rating to determine the value of a currency. "My aim is primarily to finance the Russian revolution." "No real revolution in Russia is possible if the Kremlin remains in possession of its present note-issue monopoly. This monopoly must be broken. How? Certainly not by those means which you will apply to England, that is: Let honest men, known for their honesty, issue notes based on trust." - "Possible is then only a note system founded on visible goods or ready for sale services, which may be bought with the notes."
    
51. I earnestly hoped that you would devote the qualities of your unique intelligence to the liberation of the East and so of the whole world. … I must abandon this hope. Pity! Disappearing gold coins do not really disappear. 10. II. 1953: From a remaining or introduced bad monetary system a new tyranny will arise, a new imperialism and things will only have changed their names. The future monetary organisation of the East must be as good as it can be, from the first minute of its existence. Nuclear war threat.
    
52. V/108. Private gold coins used as measure of value. Present paper money discounted then generally refused. Shop association money will be issued and accepted like gold coins are accepted. They will be lent to employers, coops etc. especially for wages. Many coops will issue notes on the same principles. Paper money is never used as a measure of value while people are permitted to use real things as a measure of value, especially precious metals. That tendency belongs to human nature and will belong to it for many of the coming years. 6. II. 1953: Price, value and purchasing power do not represent synonyms. A good explanation of the difference between price and value was given by Marshall when he created the notion of "consumer's rent".
    
53. "International gold price"? The habit of pricing gold coins is international, but there is not international price for gold coins. What would be the unit of this international price? A condition where no paper money is any longer enforced.
    

V/110 Par value & face value. Various objections of Meulen against the simple system of a) accepting a sovereign note as if it were a sovereign, b) pricing commodities in gold sovereigns, multiples of fractions of it, c) accepting coined sovereigns also for the goods priced in sovereigns, all in order to achieve the equality in value of paper notes and gold coins.
V/111 Various assumptions of Meulen. B.: "… the worst of all goods, that is, modern paper money…"
V/112 Meulen's "gold price" again, expressed in paper money. Not even distinguishing between official and free market prices. 17. II. 1953: Napoleonic wars. The numbers were on N.'s side. But the Allies declared that they were not fighting against France but only against Napoleon. And they had a government-in-exile ready: Louis XVIII. Moreover, the promised national independence to subdued countries. Furthermore, even N.'s soldiers were war-weary and N. had twice deserted whole armies, in Egypt and Russia. They obviously fought no longer for their own freedom. - Soviet rule and Satellites ready for revolution if the military preconditions are given.
V/113 Manpower of Satellites compared with manpower of Soviets. One of the generals will play the role of Iturbide in 1821 Mexico or Monk in the England of 1660. The victory of the anti-Soviet revolution will be very probable if it possesses a good economic and monetary program. (And a political one, like panarchism, which promises liberation and self-government to all volunteer communities, including even the various communist and socialist ones. - J.Z., 22.6.03.) But none of the programs published in England is suitable for the East. 23. II. 1953:
Forced currency.
V/114 When gold coins were legal tender and prices were expressed in gold coins, gold coins never got a price. All men tend to use precious metals as measure of value, if they are permitted to do so. World price for ingots? In what units was that world price expressed? The fact, that in every part of the world ingots had a price, does not mean that there was a world price for ingots. Drain on gold reserves of Central Banks: Central Banks backed flawed investments of other banks. The also had committed themselves to pay at least other central banks in gold upon demand. Bagehot, in "Lombard Street" explained the crises